U.S. Roads WikiProject

===Editorial===
On September 18, 2005, I founded the U.S. Roads WikiProject as a simple project designed to "adopt" the states without a state highway WikiProject and allow for new [[WP:WSS]] stubs to be created with a lower minimum number of articles.

I'd like to briefly recap the history of USRD. We currently have 18 archive pages of WT:USRD, and I neither have the time nor space to mention ''everything.'' But I'm going to give a very brief summary. I've organized it into four "eras" of USRD:
*'''Before 2006: the "unorganized" era.''' Before 2006, the road articles were highly unorganized, as was much of Wikipedia during this time. A lot of the articles were created between 2004 and 2006. Highway articles would quite frequently get sent to AFD, with mixed results. There were only state WikiProjects, and very few; USRD was created towards the end of this era, and was a shell. There were very few FAs, and GA didn't exist in its present form for most of this time. This era began to draw to a close with the events that led up to the first Highways arbitration case and [[WP:SRNC]], when the project divided over how to name articles.
*'''2006-2008 - the beginnings of USRD''' - After SRNC, we spent the next few months repairing relationships and catching up with the mess that our articles had become in the meantime. However, towards 2007, many of the USRD facilities that we take for granted today developed, such as assessment, IRC, IH, USH, most of the state highway WikiProjects, ELG (which would become RJL), ACR, the shields task force, MTF, and ACR. We formed this project newsletter in January 2007 to respond to issues that were taking place and to unify the project. We began to get our first GAs as a project. The development of {{tl|U.S. Roads WikiProject}} took place; while most collaboration took place at the state level, the USRD project was beginning to form. This era ended in early 2008 with the second Highways arbitration case, when internal disagreements led to an arbitration case, which had very few remedies and did little to resolve the internal problems.
*'''2008-2012 - the transition period:''' After the second arbitration case we entered a transition period, where we slowly went from over 30 state highway WikiProjects to one national WikiProject. A race began to get FAs and GAs, and to reduce WikiWork and the number of stubs through two stub drives. The county challenges and USRDCups played a major role in this as well. The newsletter was eventually decommissioned in 2008, but resurfaced in 2010, after attempts at a project blog failed. The switch to {{tl|Infobox road}} took place, and our notability guidelines developed. The focus of USRD switched from quantity to quality, as we worked on making higher-quality articles. Many events transpired that drew us together, such as the Racepacket arbitration case, the geocoordinates debates, and the revisions to RJL and {{tl|Infobox road}} to make it international. This era recently ended with the consolidation of nearly all the state highway WikiProjects into task forces of USRD. While this happened officially in 2012, this had unofficially been taking place for years as standards merged and editors networked. As our editing base has declined, it is easier to maintain one national project. In addition to this, there are few state-specific variations of standards, and the projects were eventually seen as redundant. New York still remains its own state highway WikiProject; it is hoped that it will merge with USRD in the future, but for now it remains a separate WikiProject, yet still a part of the USRD family.
*'''2012 to present:''' Now that our project has mostly been unified, we are moving forward as one unit. We are taking a year off from reducing stubs to catch up on other issues that need to be resolved. A few of our primary editors from earlier eras are returning, and the project is undergoing a renaissance.

One of our focuses over the next few years should be recruiting and retaining talented editors. Over the last few years, the number of active editors in Wikipedia and in USRD have declined. Certain states remain untouched because there are no editors interested or knowledgable about that state's highways. In order to be successful in this new era of Wikipedia, we need to retain the editors we have while recruiting new editors to replace the ones who do become inactive, and to expand our editing base.

In addition to this, we need to maintain good relations with those "outside" the project. Way back in the first two eras of USRD, we had a history of deviating significantly from the standards and norms of Wikipedia. Over the years, we have developed standards that do comply with typical Wikipedia norms such as MOS. However, we cannot go too far towards the other end of the spectrum; we need to represent our opinions and interests effectively. We should remember that we are part of Wikipedia as a whole and there is no OWNership of articles, yet we are all U.S. roads editors (and plain roads editors) as well and have to defend the project's interests as well. There are some that would label our reputation as "steamrollers" or as a "walled garden." Personally, I'd like to move away from this era.

On a more personal note, it's been a great ride at USRD over the last several years. I started editing back in high school, and since then, I have gone through college and will (hopefully!) be moving on to graduate school in the fall. I've grown up with a lot of you over the years through project discussions and late-night IRC conversations, and it's been great. I look forward to what is in store for USRD and to contributing to it for the foreseeable future.