Template talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the WikiProject U.S. Roads template.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Archives: 1, 2: 14 days

This template does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

U.S. Roads

	U.S. roads portal This template is within the scope of the U.S. Roads WikiProject, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to state highways and other major roads in the United States. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.U.S. RoadsWikipedia:WikiProject U.S. RoadsTemplate:WikiProject U.S. RoadsU.S. road transport articles
	This article may or may not have a map. Please check, then add `\|needs-map=` to this template accordingly.
	This article may or may not contain a junction list. Please check, then add `\|needs-jctint=` to this template accordingly.

WPBannerMeta/hooks/taskforces

This template is using Template:WPBannerMeta/hooks/taskforces which is no longer supported. I would like to update to use the native task force support in Module:WikiProject banner. Will do some work in the sandbox shortly. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:49, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Starting work on this now ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:49, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In order to update this template effectively, I would like to convert the syntax in the following way:

Instead of |state1=AL

we use |AL=yes

And so on with all the other states. This is the more usual style of triggering task forces, used by nearly every other wikiProject. Would there be any problem with doing this? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:30, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You'd have about 10,000 articles to convert over. Please leave the syntax as it is. Imzadi 1979 → 05:03, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10,000 is no problem with a willing bot operator. Is there any particular problem with that syntax? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:03, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The current syntax works well for our project. Please do not change it. Imzadi 1979 → 05:38, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there's a specific reason why this just works better. Most articles are only classified into a single state or territory. Having a single prompt in the Rater gadget for |state= vastly simplifies assessing articles. It's uncommon that we need |state2= etc. In fact, the current syntax doesn't allow for an article to be tagged in more than 10 state task forces because no article should be in more than a few, let alone all 56 jurisdictions in the US (50 states, 1 district, 5 territories). Imzadi 1979 → 05:41, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The template already allows 20 |staten= and |staten_importance= parameters. So Having a single prompt in the Rater gadget for |state= vastly simplifies assessing articles is already not correct. Also, |AL=y is more simple then |state=AL (less characters and easier to remember). Gonnym (talk) 00:20, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And about 16 of those sets of parameters could probably be removed. There probably isn't a current use case for more than about 4 states to be taggd. After that, and we've split out sub articles by state and stopped tagging the national-level for each state. Imzadi 1979 → 03:04, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have managed to update Canada Roads, India Roads and Australian Roads to stop them using the outdated code. I am unable to use the same method on this template because of the need to support |state1_importance= and the like. I believe that any coded solution to convert these would make the template much more complicated which would result in harder maintenance by other editors. I thought about adding support for this kind of parameter naming to Module:WikiProject banner but it would increase the complexity of that module for the benefit of just one template (this one) so that idea has been discarded. My preferred option is to convert the syntax as described above, which would ensure that everything works correctly in the most efficient way. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:52, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that |state1_importance= is not mentioned anywhere in the template's documentation, so perhaps it was never properly implemented and/or not needed. If it is not needed, then I can use Module:If any equal to make this template work with the up-to-date code (as I did with Canada and India Roads). If state level importance is needed, then I suggest we use a bot to convert to the conventional syntax as discussed above — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:28, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MSGJ: it may be used for some New York articles, but those may have been switched to remove it as the importance would have been harmonized at one point across the project. (New York had some eccentricities at one point.) I will reiterate my opposition to any bot conversion of the template to a new parameter scheme. Imzadi 1979 → 20:32, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]