Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a roadfan paradise
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
Wikipedia is a roadfan paradise. With the generally accepted notion (unachievable consensus) that almost all significant numbered routes in the world are notable per Wikipedia:Notability as documented at Wikipedia:NUMBERED, thousands of road articles have been created. Wikiprojects such as WikiProject U.S. Roads have taken on the monumental task of collecting all road knowledge known to man and publishing it here at this one solitary location known as Wikipedia. While the existence of this transportation information mecca depends largely upon other roadfan websites as sources, Wikipedia itself has essentially become a roadfan website; more accurately, it has become the largest roadfan website in the world!
Other than for the amusement of roadfans, in all honesty, these route articles have very little (if any) practical purpose. An average individual will never need to know how many counties North Carolina Highway 8 passes through. Nevertheless, this useless knowledge is the sort of stuff that roadfans crave, and as long as Wikipedians allow it, the information will remain. The Wikipedia elite stand by the policy of "No Original Research", but route articles seem to get a pass largely because many facts can be checked for verifiability simply by looking at a map, atlas, or gazetteer. It just exemplifies that there are different norms for different kinds of articles on Wikipedia.
Roadfans rejoice; this is your paradise! It will remain a paradise until some policy change is implemented or until some mass deletion of articles occurs after an Articles for Deletion debate challenges route articles on "Reliable Sources" and/or "Verifiability". If such an mass deletion occurs, it would arguably be one of the largest, if not the largest loss of information this encyclopedia has ever seen. Since so many editors are roadfans, however, it is unlikely that a deletion consensus will be reached in the foreseeable future regardless of policy and/or guidelines.