Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Historic sites/Archive 1

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Welcome!

Welcome everyone to WikiProject Historic Sites' Talk page. If you signed up to support this at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page, I assumed you meant also to sign up as a member. Please check your listing on the main page and mention any special interests you'd like to share. I like the sport of visiting historic sites to take pics for wikipedia--i am taking to calling it "henging" whether visiting Stonehenge, other henges, or any other historic sites--and hope that we can together make it an enjoyable sport for many! I'm hoping this wikiproject will be a fun endeavor, and that we'll get to create and learn a lot together. :) doncram (talk) 01:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

About shortcuts: we have wt:hs and wt:hsites wikilinking to here. But wp:hs is taken by some essay about High Schools. wp:hsites points to the main wikiproject page. doncram (talk) 21:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Arles Obelisk and general questions

Perhaps we could start with considering a few types of historic sites, and what role this wikiproject might take with them? One I am curious about is French historic sites, and in particular the 1840 inventory of them, and one example: Arles Obelisk

I only recently learned just a little about French historic sites. There's an inventory of about 1000 historic buildings was listed in 1840, partially listed here in the French wikipedia. I rather expect those are all individually notable for the English wikipedia. I started article Arles Obelisk, using the French wikipedia article on it for a model, and linking to that as an external link. It raises questions for me, including:

what is the proper name of this site? It is just me so far calling it "Arles Obelisk", that is my translation. Should the name here in the English wikipedia be "Obélisque d'Arles", the French name for it, and what probably appears in the 1840 inventory? If an English name is used, who says a translation of the name is good enough? I haven't yet found any English language reference that describes it as "Arles Obelisk". Maybe the English Michelin and other tourist guidebooks call it "Obelisk of Arles", or "Obélisque d'Arles". Does anyone have a guidebook that mentions it?
For the text of the article, I wrote it for now in my words, although it is based on the French wikipedia article. What is proper crediting? Is it sufficient and okay to link to the French wikipedia article as an external link?
If the article was strictly a translation, what guidelines would apply? I have seen warning notices on some userpages, about how there is a WikiProject Translation or some official process for securing translations, and/or about transwiki transfers, how "unofficial" transfers and translations might be frowned upon and deleted or whatever. How can I get an official transfer/translation requested? Should I want that, or should i avoid that?
the site is apparently part of a larger World Heritage Site, the Arles, Roman and Romanesque Monuments. I am pretty sure it is okay to have an article about this site separately, but would it be okay to add it to WikiProject World Heritage Sites, or would it not be welcome there? It's like a contributing property to a historic district in wp:NRHP; not all wp:NRHP editors would agree that every contributing property deserves an article and belongs in the wikiproject.
There is a current French official register of Monument historiques. Is this one of those? Where is any online source of this French register?
what sort of infobox might be useful to construct for this article? Is there a need for an infobox for Monument historiques and/or for the 1840 sites. Could these be applications of one generic Historic Sites infobox?
Categories: is there an 1840 sites category available
Discussion location: for now, it must be okay to discuss this example French historic site here. If there is a lot of such discussion, will it be helpful to create a Task Force?

Comments and other questions welcome. doncram (talk) 15:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

About the title of the article, I would leave the French name (after all, coup d'etat isn't blow to the state). Since there is no source showing Arles Obelisk other than yourself, in my opinion that is OR. For the references of the article, I would just use the references sited in the French article. Though unrelated to historic sites, I worked a little on translating La Siberia from Spanish, and I couldn't find many english language sources, so I just used some of the sources in Spanish from the Spanish wiki article, noting in the ref that the source was in Spanish. I wouldn't link to another Wikipedia page in external links, though; that seems to me a bit like circular reasoning. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Use whichever name is most common in English. If the name Alres Obelisk isn't found, then we should use Obélisque d'Arles, or find a name that is used in English. As far as references for it, you could look on fr.wikipedia and use a web based translator and read one of their references in English so you know what it says, and then cite the original page (untranslated), marking it as in French. At least, that's what I've done before. Killiondude (talk) 17:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I found a PDF that seems to list the monuments and under the section for Bouches-du-Rhône (the department Arles is in) it lists an "Obélisque". I'm assuming that this would probably be its official listing name and also that there are no other obelisks in the department (a Google search of "Bouches-du-Rhône" and "obelisk" turned up only the one in Arles). As for the name of the article, I think the French name would be best (a similar situation would be Musée d'Orsay, as opposed to Orsay Museum which is a redirect). --D.B.^{talk•contribs} 18:40, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Given the comments here I've moved it to Obélisque d'Arles. If it can be shown there is an English language common name for it used in tourist guidebooks, etc., then it could be further renamed later. There will always be an issue for many of these sites, whether to use the common English name for it, or the more-used, at least locally, French name for the wikipedia article. There can be a redirect from whichever is not used though.

Interesting about that PDF list of French monuments, which I think i also saw linked from Monument historique recently. I was thinking only in wp:NRHP would there be a big need for disambiguation pages (since there are so many identically named U.S. sites, like Smith House or Main Street Historic District ). But in that list, check out how many official site names are just Aqueduc or Chateau! doncram (talk) 19:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to adress the points raised; just my two cents, hope they are of some help.

1. I personally think you should use Obelisk of Arles; it wouldn't be OR, since it can be found in google books, while the French term appears to have never been used in English language publications. As a general rule, translate whenever you can: I must confess keeping my nearby Italian church in its Italian wording would sound weird to me.

I like your Google books search, but when I try same on "Arles obelisk" i get hits on that there too. If to use an English phrase, how decide which English phrase is better to use? doncram (talk) 16:40, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, you're right, don't know how I forgot to control that one too. It's a difficult point to awnser: but if we do it here (keep the original language) what shall we do in the other cases? If you think "chateau" is common, think about "église"..--Aldux (talk) 17:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

2. If it's not a real translation, maybe a wikilink may be enough; but probabably, just to be sure, you could slap the template {{Translated page}} on the talk page
3. As somebody who has translated stuff and nagged others in translating other, I'd say, the best thing is to read carefully, if you haven't already, WP:Translation. Anyway, awnsering: if it is a strict or partial translation, slap the template I spoke of previously on the talk page; as for being frowned upon, WHAT!! Really, unless a lot has changed lately, the only thing that is frowned upon are translation that are not aknowledge as such; which is why the template in question is needed. But from my experience some time ago, when I translated and nagged others in translating, individual efforts are OK, and contacting individual editors you know with begging, whining and nagging editors for translating is the most effective way to have rticles translated ;-) So I don't think there are such things as "official" requests; but you can put on a short stub the template notice: see the example made always at WP:TRANSLATION, say {{Expand French}} on the Arles Obelisk article; but in my opinion, it doesn't really work much: if you want an article translated, you should ask directly someone.
4.Really don't know here; it's certainly notable, considering the sources.
5. Due to its fame I'd say 99% yes; but this should be controlled. The current number (or better the old 1998 number) of protected historical buildings are/were 40,467.

Correction: not 99%, but 100%. I've just passed through the Base Merimmee and under the title "Obélisque antique" i found this card.--Aldux (talk) 17:46, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

6 Yes an infobox would definitely be helpful to cover those that are MH. Obviously, it couldn't be a perfect copy of the NRHP infobox, if only because knowing the insertion date in the archive and the perfectly precise location may be too hard; not all governments are as web-friendly as the US. I would avoid a specific infobox for the 1840 list; the current MH are really the same list, only greatly expanded through time.
7 Can't be sure, but apparently no. There's only Category:Official historical monuments of France. As for the web, there's the fr:Base Mérimée, [1]
8 Absolutely yes; the project should point to the creations of multiple taskforces, like one for each of the major European countries.--Aldux (talk) 22:35, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

It encourages me to continue that 1840 list.
For a translation of another WP, you should credit every authors (GFDL) by using {{Translation/Ref}} and {{Translated page}} (it is the way we do on fr:). --Coyau (talk) 19:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Merci Coyau! Good to know. I've just now added the {{Translated page}} template to the Talk page of the article. Because i didn't really translate the whole page, I am making up a use of the comment field to describe what i did as an adaptation: "Adapted from French Wikipedia as of 17 March 2009". The template message starts off saying the page is completely or partially translated. I hope that how I have done it now is okay for this case. It seems good to show the link, but better not to suggest that this page was translated literally, since it was translated so badly (so incompletely, at least)! Likewise, for this one I think i should not add the {{Translation/Ref}} to the main article, because I did not attempt to do a complete translation. Hmm, I will have to try translating an entire article now, and will use that reference then. Thanks! doncram (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Major Proposal for Cats

I propose that articles only be placed directly into categories that are specific to one heritage register. So for example, "listed buildings" in the UK or the relevent provincial or state heritage register in Canada and Australia. Broad categories like "Heritage buildings in City" or "in State" (e.g. Category:Heritage sites in British Columbia or Category:Heritage sites in Bavaria) should not themselves contain any articles but should be only used as holding cats for more specific subcats which make clear what agency or group has bestowed "heritage" status on the building or site. It make inclusion guidelines automatic and reduces the chances of over-zealous boosterism. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 17:56, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, with the understanding that an article may be in more than one such category. - Jmabel | Talk 21:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. But never in a category that doesn't have clear inclusion guidelines.--Kevlar (talk • contribs) 04:43, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. The categories such as Category:Heritage sites in British Columbia that I set up are for all national, provincial (or territorial) and local heritage sites in the particular province or territory. The major source for Candian heritage sites is Canada's Historic Places also known as the Canadian Register of Historic Places, which lists national provincial, territorial and local heritage sites. Local listings include those recognized by many small municipalities, not just the major cities. Although this website is not complete, it is being constantly expanded. clariosophic (talk) 01:57, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is a conflict here. There could be a geo-based historic sites category like Heritage sites in British Columbia, but it could consist entirely of subcategories that are register-specific: World Heritage Sites in British Columbia, Vancouver-designated historic sites, etc. Each individual article can belong to one or more of those subcategories. I think that was the thrust of Kevlar's concern, that individual articles don't get to ride for free without having a specific register associated. doncram (talk) 17:49, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Precisely. My main concern is to make sure each article is associated with a specific register. Geographical categories should become super-cats which contain more specific sub-cats. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 21:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Commons

I just wanted to urge everyone to use the Commons for images of historic sites whenever possible, instead of uploading them to a single Wikipedia. It makes sharing across languages a lot easier. See especially Commons:Category:Heritage preservation and its subordinate categories. - Jmabel | Talk 21:54, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Granularity of list on project page

How detailed should the list on the project page be? I note lists for individual states in the US (eg Long Beach, San Diego, San Francisco etc) - if we do this for the UK we could have the 50+ counties or should we have the 4 countries (England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) or just lists for the whole of the UK. If lists & categories are going to be included for all countries then individual states in the US should probably be removed & just "top level" be included. Also for a lot of the entries it says "National" without saying tis for the US - for those of us elesewhere in the world could this be made explicit?— Rod ^talk 22:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I also note a list of US parks has been included - so should we have National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens?— Rod ^talk 22:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I was aiming for the list-table on the project page to be a list of all Registers and/or designations, not a list of all geographic areas in the world. So U.K. Grade I listed buildings is one list, one entry, no need to include all the separate intersections of that X geographic subarea. I have edited it just now to try to address Rodw's good concerns, indicating U.S. where applicable and adding a column at right to describe the geographic scope of the given Register. The order of the table is meant to be world-wide scope registers first, then by country, and in some sensible order within each country (though I am not sure that is accomplished). Certainly there are many historic registers out there yet to be added. I think any municipal or whatever level register, that has a defined list and potentially knowable count of sites, can be included. We'll split the table when it gets too big.

There are many U.S. registers listed already because there are many distinct registers/designations in the United States, and I happen to know about wikipedia activity about many of them, so I included them.

About parks, I think Rodw refers to the U.S. National Historical Parks, U.S. National Military Park, and U.S. National Battlefield Parks. Those are distinct designations and those are historic sites. U.S. National Parks and U.S. National Monuments should not be included in this list because their designations are for natural environment reserves and do not require historical importance. I do believe there are some registers of historic gardens, perhaps including the one Rodw mentions, which are historic in nature and should be included. But not all parks, all environmental areas, etc. doncram (talk) 23:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens register items added for the one in England, for the one in Wales. Criteria described in article about how old and/or important a landscaped garden must be, make clear these registers definitely qualify. U.S. NRHP criteria, by the way, usually require a site to be 50 years old, but exceptionally important newer sites can be added. doncram (talk) 23:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Listed buildings in the United Kingdom

Hey, there are lots of nice articles on individual Listed buildings in the U.K., and a growing number of featured list-articles on subsets of them, such as Listed buildings in Runcorn.

But, AFAIK there is no overall list article. Can I ask here, if anyone would please start one, or not mind if I do? It seems natural to have a top-level list article, perhaps reporting sublists on Listed buildings in England vs. Wales vs. Scotland vs. Northern Ireland, which would take on the task of listing them all, hopefully in tabular format that would hold thumbnail pics. Categories only show existing articles, they don't show redlinks for articles needed and they don't receive pics that many people might add (although they are not ready to start an article). Or perhaps there is such a list article already? doncram (talk) 22:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

With the number of listed buildings this would be too much for one list. see Category:Lists of Grade I listed buildings in England by county for each of the county lists (several are FL status) - & thats just for grade I - a massive challenge if you want to take it on but I think it would break all the guidelines for how big a page should be!— Rod ^talk 23:05, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, no problemo. In a Listed Buildings in England list-article, I would just include the 46 English county lists that appear in that category, and the tallies of buildings in each of those lists, plus list other counties that have no lists yet. doncram (talk) 23:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Remembering that these don't yet include those which are still classified A,B,C & still haven't been included in the I, II*, II system yet.— Rod ^talk 23:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, yes. But hmm, considering each of Grade I, Grade II*, Grade II, A, B, C as separate registers/designations makes it hard to set up a U.K.-wide list-article for each of them, linking in the list-articles which have been created. I think there's Grade I Listed Buildings in Bristol and/or some other designation X geo area list-articles that would file in okay, but there exist some list articles like Listed Buildings in Runcorn which don't fit into just one designation. I guess there can be overall Listed buildings in the United Kingdom, and then split by geo area? doncram (talk) 23:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

No, given how many of the Grade II* and II ones there are, seems desirable to do a U.K. wide list of Grade I buildings, and develop that first, which is what UK wikipedians have been doing apparently. Okay, started a list of the English Grade I ones, within Listed Buildings in the United Kingdom. doncram (talk) 00:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Currently, I've seen only two districts (that is, less than counties) completely covered with all grades: these are Halton in Cheshire and Crawley in West Sussex. And just to obtain a manageable list with Halton, the district had to be split down to its two towns (Runcorn and Widnes) and its smaller civil parishes. And there areas and cities with a much richer history than Halton; how would we manage to make a comprehensive list of a city like Cambridge?--Aldux (talk) 23:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I am sure it could be done! :) The U.S. List of RHPs currently indexes about 50,000 of 80,000 sites in its register. Actually, it would help a lot if the U.K. listed building database, which must exist, could be obtained in electronic form. Then we could automate table generation for county-wide or city-wide list-articles, and automate infobox generation for individual articles. doncram (talk) 23:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Correction: The U.S. List of RHPs indexes almost all 80,000 or so sites. Of those, about 50,000 are covered in list-tables which include addresses, latitude-longitude coordinates, and other info, and are accompanied by Google maps allowing wikipedia readers and potential photographers and writers to find where they are, easily. doncram (talk) 13:26, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Also I'm sure you are aware of Images of England which, once you are logged in is capable of developing list by all sorts of criteria - I believe it's how the county lists were generated.— Rod ^talk 00:20, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, no, never heard of that. Maybe some with programming skills could consider if that database can be downloaded and used like Elkman did so capably with the U.S. NRHP database. doncram (talk) 00:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

That would be very useful. I did the Crawley list referred to above, and even though it is relatively short (94 buildings) it was logistically tricky to set up and took quite a long time to do manually. I want to try Brighton and Hove, another sub-county level area, as my next "project", but doing it manually would be a nightmare—there are more than 1,200 listed buildings there! Note that if we do introduce some sort of automatic list-creation procedure using Images of England data, some manual checking would be needed in respect of buildings added to or removed from the list since the IoE data was produced (2000). IoE is essentially a static database: it is not routinely updated with changes. Most local authorities maintain an up-to-date online list of listed buildings in their area, which should be checked against the IoE data. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 00:03, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Good. I would consider it a Top priority task for this Wikiproject to organize some technical help here. There must be a U.K. governmental body which is maintaining a relatively up-to-date register. It must in turn be convinced to release that in some database form, into Public domain or some Wikipedia-compatible license, so that we could apply programming skill, present here already (and we can develop more skill as needed), to create a U.K. County/City list-table-generator tool and a U.K. individual site Infobox generator tool. These would help immeasurably, as proven by the effect of similar contributions by Elkman for the U.S. NRHP system. Also, not well understood anywhere, the Elkman tools to support creation of disambiguation pages are invaluable already for wp:NRHP and need to be developed further and copied, too. Understood, fully by me anyhow, that local knowledge and manual corrections will be necessary. The U.S. NRHP database system (NRIS) has proven to have hundreds (at least) of small and large errors, by the way. I think any database has errors. Eventually we have forged a process of cooperation with NRHP staff that is, knock on wood, helping both to correct their NRIS data where wikipedians identify errors, and to generate more publicly available and useful info for wikipedians to use. The larger numbers of the U.K. historic sites and the great interest and skill already shown by U.K. historic sites wikipedians require that we sort out a better system for U.K. data! p.s. Could anyone please second this as a motion, and then let's record it prominently in a Top Priority Tasks section on the main page here. And/or modify the suggestion? doncram (talk) 13:22, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Monumentos historicos

I've found the official website of the National Historic Monuments of Argentina [2]. More important, it has a catalogue, listing 929 entries, concerning "Monumentos y Lugares Historicos". This divide itself in 38 "bien de interese historico", 262 "Lugares Historicos", 464 "Monumentos Historicos", 148 "sepulcros", 17 "otros". The official title seems to be "Monumentos y Lugares Historicos Nationales" [3], so probably we should rename it National Monuments and Historic Places. Also: should these graves be considered notable enough to have an article? This, obviously, if we are lucky enough to find some helpful Argentines...--Aldux (talk) 00:35, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Nice identification of numbers involved! Any list of 1,000 or so is very doable for one or a few persons to create articles for all of them. This then seems like a candidate area to address, while i am intimidated by the U.K. numbers, by contrast. Of course renaming the article should be discussed at the Talk page of the article. This is an issue of how best to translate the name into English. I did invite one or two contributors to that article and/or its Talk page to join this wikiproject, but perhaps it would be good to reach out to them more. doncram (talk) 22:18, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance

Looks like there's a lot of material in this inventory to add, too. Trouble is, it seems that all the information there is in PDF format. Furthermore, it's in German (which I don't speak, alas) - and I'm not sure if there's a property list. Anyone fancy a look?

If not, there's always National Trust for the Cayman Islands... --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 01:31, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I bought a copy of the inventory (dead-tree format only), started the article and the Category:Cultural property of national significance in Switzerland. Then I got into contact with the officials responsible and they told me that they'd revise the inventory in 2009, so I stopped. As soon as the new inventory is published, I intend to make a list article. See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Switzerland#Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance. Sandstein 05:34, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I've updated the article with a link to a draft of the new inventory, but I think we should wait until the definitive version is enacted to do any inportant work such as creating a list. Sandstein 05:44, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I browsed also Sandstein's contributions and good discussion within the Talk page of the linked article. I would like to move that we consider it a Top Priority Task for this wikiproject to work with the Swiss government to secure a useable database in public domain or wikipedia-compatible licensed form. As discussed about U.K. listed buildings, with that it should be possible to support a Swiss historic sites list-table generator, a Swiss historic site infobox generator and corresponding disambiguation page support tools. With Switzerland, we have a government agency that wants to cooperate and is showing great capacities (for example, their new GIS tool, although that is too complex or my connnection is too poor for me to fully appreciate). Timing-wise, I think we should act as soon as possible, to allow them to coordinate their efforts to help us the most, before their project concludes. Would anyone please second this as a motion, and/or suggest modifications? doncram (talk) 13:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Other registers that come to mind

While I'm on the subject...there's also a list of Monuments and Historic Sites of Zambia. I've also been looking at the South African heritage register, and it looks to me like there are more than 44 sites listed; there are a lot of smaller properties whose status seems to be similar to those listed on the NRHP in the US (I could be wrong - what I mean is that they aren't full Heritage Sites, but they have some degree of lesser recognition). There's also the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties, which is huge, and there's a lot of documentation there; I'm not sure if it's something we'd be interested in working with, though. Couple of smaller ones in the Caribbean, too, including the St. Lucia National Trust (that's their property listing), the Jamaica National Trust, the Barbados National Trust, and the National Trust of Guyana. And I found a list of historic sites in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Perhaps I'm getting a bit ahead of myself with these; still, best to be comprehensive. And there's some good and useful information online for some of these. --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 02:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

On South Africa I can confirm that there are several thousand declared heritage sites. The status of many is still uncertain due to a badly-implemented legislative change-over, and I suspect nobody wanted to potentially waste time on a dirty list. And to add to your list, Mozambique and Angola are ripe for the picking by anybody with the linguistic versatility. 9Nak (talk) 13:22, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Concerning South Africa, if somebody has missed it, I've found the online database, and it's clear that the provincial heritage sites are by far bigger than shown by the quite flimsy list. [4] According to the database, there are: 8 "National Heritage Sites"; 2867 "Provincial Heritage Sites"; 17 "Heritage Areas"; 46 "Heritage Objects"; 19 under "Provisional Protection"; 1 "Pendinding"; 3 "deproclaimed"; and, a quite puzzling addition, there's a category called "register", which includes 607. All these are under the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), and all sites have a brief report.--Aldux (talk) 14:12, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Alas, my knowledge of Portuguese is but slight. Would there happen to be copies of their respective lists available online? I'd be curious to have a look, if nothing else. I'm also trying to research some of the rest of Europe: I'm sure there are heritage registers in places like Poland, for instance, but again, given that I don't know the languge, finding the information's a tad difficult. I'll see what I can come up with, though. --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 15:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Little or no detail of the sites, but here is Angola. For Mozambique this is all I've ever found. 9Nak (talk) 22:02, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Excellent - at least they give us something to start with. --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 04:11, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Great stuff. I've tried to capture some links and number estimates for all of these into table on main page. Please check/correct/add new there. Thanks! doncram (talk) 14:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Rather than just adding registers to the list on the project page - which I've been doing & is going to get massive - shouldn't we be doing this at List of heritage registers & getting that list improved?— Rod ^talk 15:19, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Images

There are probably quite a few featured pictures for this project at this gallery. Durova^Charge! 15:10, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Please let me know as more high resolution material becomes available. Minimum specs include 10MB or greater in TIFF or other uncompressed format. Durova^Charge! 15:11, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Counter Systemic Bias, category names, and register names

I like the thrust of wp:CSB, to counter systemic bias in wikipedia.

About some category names, it seems to me that several U.K. categories should perhaps be renamed to use United Kingdom or U.K. in their name. There are Hong Kong Grade I, II, III listed buildings, etc., too, e.g. Category:Grade I historic buildings in Hong Kong. Should Category:Grade I listed buildings, Category:Grade II* listed buildings, Category:Grade II listed buildings, Category:Category A listed buildings, Category:Category B listed buildings, Category:Grade A listed buildings, Category:Grade B+ listed buildings, Category:Grade B1 listed buildings, perhaps be renamed?

About register names, it seems possible to me (not sure) that some U.S. registers, e.g. National Register of Historic Places and some of the other U.S. designations, should perhaps be renamed to include U.S. or United States in their names. About NRHP, I am not aware of that specific full phrase being used in another national register name, however. doncram (talk) 22:11, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your general sentiment. But I think the policy is pretty clear. If there are two registers with exactly the same name then the articles and categories about them should be disambiged (Hong Kong and UK?). Otherwise no (US situation). If we later on discover a new register with the same name as one with a well-established article we can change it then. No need for pre-emptive disambiguation. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 23:10, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Pages with multple info boxes

Just looking at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. This site is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site), the Gov't of Canada as a National Historic Site of Canada, and the Gov't of Alberta as a Provincial Historic Site of Alberta. If we create seperate infoboxes for each designation it could get ugly. It also has a "protected area" (national park) infobox as well. Is it possible to express all this information in ONE infobox rather than four? Can we create a generic {{Infobox Historic Site}} with enough field to cover all eventualities? --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 00:46, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I think doncram created Template:Infobox local1. It seems we should expand upon that for this WikiProject. Killiondude (talk) 00:54, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

We had the same problem with Bath, Somerset which is a World Heritage Site, but the consensus of editors was to use the UK settlement infobox at the top of the article & the WHS one in the specific section which talks about this status. In relation to other infoboxes. I used to use Template:Infobox Historic building a lot and this then got removed/merged or whatever (although you can still see the details at Template talk:Infobox Historic building) & Template:Infobox building was preferred. I think cvreating one to cover all options for all sites which could fall within the remit of this project would be almost impossible.— Rod ^talk 09:00, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I would have thought it was impossible to do something that big too. But look at {{Infobox Officeholder}} which covers MPs, Congressmen, Presidents, and Governors from any number of countries with wildly varying political systems. It has turned out to be very useful for articles on people who have held multiple offices. So I think there is hope. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 21:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes i think there is hope. See Manzanar for a featured article example of a U.S. historic site with multiple register designations, handled by one infobox with a differently colored banner for each honor. In some articles like the Buffalo Jump one, it may be best for the article to have one infobox near the top for something else, and then a historic sites infobox further down in a History section reflecting the register listing(s) which were awarded relatively late in the site's history. In other articles, it may be best to have a combo infobox, like there are combo ship & NRHP, lighthouse & NRHP, train station & NRHP infoboxes (see Template:infobox nrhp/testcases for examples). In others like the Manzanar one just a single historic sites infobox arraying all the separate heritage registers which apply, will be best. Arraying the multiple honors togethers clarifies visually for the reader that the place has multiple honors which are distinct although they may sound confusingly similar, and provides links to more info on each one of those honors very compactly. We have to keep in mind that for many sites the place is important for many reasons, well known and documented, and that historic site listing is secondary. For these a historic sites infobox may not be appropriate. For many lesser sites, the places are wikipedia-notable largely because they are listed on a given heritage register, and little outside their register application is available about them. In these latter, the historic sites infobox is more helpful. doncram (talk) 22:02, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization

Should Sites in WikiProject Historic Sites be capitalized? Currently our project banner uses lower-case, but the project title is capitalized. I'm thinking sites should be lower-case, or does the banner need fixed instead of the name? Thanks, §hep ^Talk 09:28, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Practice in other Wikiproject titles is inconsistent, but IMHO we should follow WP:NC#Lowercase and use lower case. Sandstein 14:28, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Anyone object to moving the project? §hep ^Talk 23:36, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Manual of Style -> Manual of style is hilarious, by the way. I tend to think that it is the title/name of our group, a proper noun, which should be capitalized. In a letter to a government agency, asking for them to share a database to us, I would want to describe this as a proper noun group, and describe myself as a member. We're a club like Masons and Elks, not masons and elk, yes? But if there are guidelines somewhere more specific on wikiproject names, I could be moved. Currently i think the banner should be changed, instead. doncram (talk) 00:43, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not attached either way, I was thinking along the lines of MILHIST when I brought this topic up. As long as we get consistency. §hep ^Talk 00:53, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I really could care less about it, but if I think about it "Historic sites" seems better (see WikiProject Disaster management and WikiProject Ethnic groups as precedents). "Historic sites" on its own wouldn't be capitalized like National Register of Historic Places or World Heritage Sites. If someone wants to spend time to move the pages, be bold and go ahead, if not, no sense fixing something thats not broken. --D.B.^{talk•contribs} 01:09, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Reversing, I am okay with lower-casing it. Seeing Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Task forces helps. We could have task forces that sometimes would be capitalized, sometimes not:

WikiProject Historic sites/Oklahoma State Landmarks
WikiProject Historic sites/Oklahoma municipalities
WikiProject Historic sites/Historic sites of Oklahoma municipalities

I say go ahead if you like. Hopefully there are not too many pages to move yet, good to catch before we grew more. doncram (talk) 05:10, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Will do, only 4 pages and 2 talks. Can't be too many incoming links yet. I'll move the project banner too, but leave up the redirect unless it's decided we don't need it anymore. §hep ^Talk 23:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC)