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.

The list was not promoted by Dabomb87 23:21, 26 June 2009 [1].

List of National Historic Landmarks in Indiana[edit]

Nominator(s): Reywas92Talk 18:45, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Toolbox

This list was really interesting to make. It's based off the FL List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama with some additions. The article is fully referenced and complete. There's differing information about each of the 37 sites, so tell me if any descriptions are too long or short. I'm sorry that a few images are missing, but I searched Commons, Flickr, Google, and NPS and couldn't find anything free. Reywas92Talk 18:45, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Chrishomingtang

Comment

  • Image: What up with the black edge? It looks very ugly IMO. Can you fix the image? Or ask the uploader to do that?
  • "National Historic Landmark program": shouldn't program be capitalized like on their site?

—Chris! ct 20:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Done for the caps. Now that you've pointed it out I agree that the border doesn't look the best, but unfortunately it's part of the image itself and fixing it may mess up the coordinates system. Here's the image and the template that make it work, but I'm not sure how to fix it. Anyway, all the state locator maps have it. Reywas92Talk 20:28, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you look at the image history on File:Indiana Locator Map with US.PNG, the first version the uploader uploaded is without black border. I don't know why he uploaded the second version. I can certainly revert back to the previous, but like you said, I don't want to mess up the coordinates. Can you ask Appraiser the uploader about that?—Chris! ct 20:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • He's inactive [2]. I don't think it's that bad though, especially if it's consistent for all 50 states. Reywas92Talk 22:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support A great list. I don't find the border on the image to be a problem. —Charles Edward (Talk | Contribs) 12:17, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support

Other than that, nice work. TheLeftorium 17:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment If you're still missing some photos that you're unable to take youself (Dont you live in Indiana? road trip!), I've found looking at other articles with photos in the same county can identify people who have no problem stopping by someplace for you. In Virginia, I left notes on I think 4 peoples talk pages and got all the photos I wanted. dm (talk) 18:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs)

Sources

Comments from Doncram (talk · contribs) You've done a great job developing this list-article from the version of June 30, 2008, at completion of a WikiProject NRHP drive to create complete NHL lists and to start an article for each separate NHL. My comments and questions:

Definitely nice work. doncram (talk) 04:30, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose by Nev1 (talk · contribs)

Lead
The table
General

I have only inspected the entries for 21 out of the 37 sites, but I think it's enough to highlight the problem this list suffers from. The sourcing is a serious concern for me at this point. While the list appears to have been well researched, it's disappointing that the sources which were probably used are not all listed. There's a lot of work to be done here. Nev1 (talk) 18:18, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Last minute comment: No, National Historic Landmarks are just that, there are not two tracks for natural vs. historic. Yes, National Monuments can be historic (in which case they get listed in the National Register of Historic Places), or they may be natural only. The sortable date column in the list-article is for NHL designation date. It would be hard / impossible to identify date of construction for all NHLs. The NRHP database which includes all of these has a "date built" field which is used to give date built, where relevant and known, like for a house. But it is used for date of significance in other cases, like the year of birth of a U.S. president, in a house that was built years earlier. Some NHLs are archeological sites where the significant date is 500 A.D.-700 A.D. or whatever. So, date column for date built would not be helpful. doncram (talk) 00:14, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Last minute comment: About sourcing, I would prefer for this to be understood and presented as a list of summaries of other wikipedia articles, with footnote references provided for only unusual assertions. In the FA nomination of the List of NHLs in NY, that seemed to be accepted by FA reviewers. The description column there had a footnote in the header row, explaining that sources were to be found in the corresponding articles. Specifically, the footnote was this[1].
Reference
  1. ^ National Park Service. "National Historic Landmark Program: NHL Database". retrieved on various dates, and other sources cited in the articles on each of the sites.
    2. That reference covers all of the brief, not very useful NPS NHL webpages, and sources which are in the individual NHL list-articles. This was explicitly discussed in the NYS NHL list-article's FA review. The list-article was not promoted, but I understood that was for other reasons. I also understand that allowing this kind of presentation could be an exception for FA practices, and worth a larger RFC type discussion. Note that as a list of historic sites, all the historic sites articles are non-controversial, fully accepted as being wikipedia-notable, and are very stable (sources are not being added and subtracted, and there is no controversy in any individual NHL article). The FA exception could be written or understood to be very narrow, to cover only NHL-type list-articles where these characteristics apply. However, I think this Indiana NHL list-article could be accepted, as is, now, with a general sources footnote like that and with a qualifier in the FA promotion to the effect that its promotion would be reversed if a general RFC type discussion later settles to a different consensus. (I am assuming every fact in the descriptions here is supported by sources in the corresponding articles.) Update: Just looking at the first corresponding article, i see it does not include inline citations and is effectively unsourced, so the articles cannot currently serve as the sources for this list-article.
    This Indiana list-article is a great work, clearly to me within the set of wikipedia's best work. I am entirely a stickler about there being adequate, explicit sourcing for wikipedia articles; what is at stake here is whether our style decision should be to include excessive footnotes that no one will read, and are off-putting, in an otherwise great index-type article whose every fact is supported by sources in the articles that it indexes. The NYS list-article would require hundreds of useless footnotes, of no benefit in my view. Again, if there is a really unusual assertion, it could/should be sourced within the article. doncram (talk) 23:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I realise the nomination is closed but I think I should reply to these comments. First of all, I didn't see the FLC for list of National Historic Landmarks in New York and if I had I would have opposed for the reasons I have here. I disagree that it's enough to have the individual articles sourced. All the sources used in a list or article should be included; deferring to other wikipedia articles is not good enough as they may changed so that they no longer include the relevant information or sources. The individual articles should be sourced, but so should the list. You say that the web sources provided cover "all of the brief, not very useful NPS NHL webpages", well I didn't see any links in those articles to more information. The information should be immediately to hand so that the reader doesn't have to trawl through the website searching for it. Especially when someone else has gone to the effort of doing it for them in the article. As for off putting, really? Two or three references is that much more intimidating than one? The reference section is at the end of the article so isn't that off putting.
    • I'm fully aware that some of the sites are archaeological sites, but sorting by date would still be useful. It's also easy to do: for example, to make sure 500 doesn't come after 1973, or that 17th century comes before 1750, just add <span style="display:none">number</span> before the date; then put the numbers into ascending order and it will sort fine. This is a good list, a lot of work has gone into it and it's a credit to Reywas, but I still think it needs more to be ready for FL status.
    • If this is the inappropriate place to continue this discussion because the nomination is closed I will happily continue it on whatever talk page seems best. Nev1 (talk) 00:07, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, to be continued elsewhere. doncram (talk) 15:18, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem is that the National Park Service pages on these have very little information. I used as much from them as I could and took the rest from the articles. It's just not consistent to have lots of different refs for one but only the NPS link for another. I'll see what I can change in the descriptions, but I don't want to have multiple inconsistent sources for each. Reywas92Talk 22:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Last minute comment: Yes, those NPS summary NHL webpages are very inadequate. They are in fact summaries, in at least a few cases with errors of interpretation introduced in the summarizing, from the detailed, reliable, well-referenced NRHP/NHL application documents that have authors, dates, and are reliable sources written by architectural historians and other experts, sometimes on NPS staff and sometimes contracted out to other experts by owners of nominated properties. About the NPS summary NHL webpages, it is nonetheless useful to include reference to them in individual NHL articles in order to document the date of NHL designation, and they have been added to every individual Indiana NHL article. doncram (talk) 00:14, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There's no problem with having multiple sources, in fact it's good academic practice. Take a look at list of castles in Cheshire, where most entries have several sources. There's no need to worry about a situation where one entry has, for example , four sources and another just one, for some one source is enough. In some instances, important information is missing and I don't think information should be removed from the article, but more sources added. The NHL database is not the be all and end all. Nev1 (talk) 22:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I've found further information for all of them from the NPS [3] that I can link to with much more information than those darn summary listings. That'll take me quite a while though. Reywas92Talk 22:44, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Last minute comment: That link is pointing to an unlabelled directory listing many of the NHL/NRHP application documents available at NPS's NPS Focus system. The main search index for those documents is this [NPS Focus search screen. In New York State, I ensured that the NHL/NRHP application was included as a reference in each one of the individual NHL articles. That could/should be done for all the Indiana articles (the NHL/NRHP application has been scanned and is online in the NPS Focus system for almost all NHLs). In an NHL article development campaign that finished on July 4, 2008, I and others ensured that at least the NPS summary NHL webpage was included as a reference in each NHL article, but it was not then practical to add the NHL/NRHP application as part of that campaign. I, and I am sure others, would help add NHL/NRHP applications to each of the Indiana NHL articles as part of a new Indiana-specific cleanup campaign, to support promotion of this list-article to FA. I oppose adding all of the same references to this list-article, as that would be excessive and not beneficial to readers. And most of the NHL summary NHL references should be dropped from here, in my view, with just the general sources note refering to the top-level NPS index of the NHL webpages provided, instead. doncram (talk) 23:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That's ok, there's no deadline and the important thing is to ensure the list is of a high standard. Nev1 (talk) 17:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Last minute comment: But there are multiple sources, they are just in the articles that this list-article indexes! doncram (talk) 23:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I will be leaving Monday for Alaska for two weeks and don't have the time to add in those other refs. Anyway, I'm a good lister and want to make sure those links are also in the 37 listed articles. Therefore I withdraw this nom and will bring it back later. Reywas92Talk 22:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I think the way to proceed would be to ensure that, here, the only information included is that which stated and fully sourced in the 37 indexed articles! And the review here should focus on verifying that, which is a feasible and practical exercise, rather than focusing on gathering and checking all the sources that are in the indexed articles, and perhaps adding other sources not in those indexed articles (which I would not want to see, I would want to ensure those new sources are put into the indexed articles, first). doncram (talk) 23:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]


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