[WikiEN-l] Reference issue

SPUI drspui at gmail.com
Thu Jun 14 22:37:44 UTC 2007


On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_322_in_New_Jersey , the 1936 
date in the infobox ostensibly has two references. But the first one 
("American Highways") is incomplete, and thus impossible to verify. The 
second does not mention that the route was formed in 1936.

So I mentioned this to the article creator in #wikipedia-en-roads-us. It 
turns out that the "American Highways" reference (<ref>{{cite 
book|last=AASHTO|authorlink=AASHTO|title=American 
Highways|publisher=AASHTO|year=1973}}</ref>) is copied from an old 
version of 
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=U.S._Route_322&oldid=138197841 
, where it was being used to support a date of 1926. I spoke with the 
person who added that to the US 322 article, and he says he found it at 
the library, and all he remembers is that it was from 1973 and had a 
list of U.S. Highways from 1926, including US 322. (I'm not disputing 
the accuracy of that in this email, since it's not relevant to the 
current matter, though I did do so at the time.) But then, if the list 
is from 1926, how is it being used to support a date of 1936? Even if it 
does, the citation is incomplete, so no one can look up the issue of 
American Highways (it was published more than once a year) and check. I 
pointed out that the 1936 date was not backed up by any sources, and was 
quieted.

(tl;dr version: neither reference supports the statement, but the person 
that added it, instead of removing the sources, ignored me.)

I could remove the sources, but (a) I'm retired and (b) it would likely 
start a revert war. I would appreciate it if someone else could take 
care of this.



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