Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways/Archive 6

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New Australian roads portal

Hi all, I have created a new portal for Australian roads. The portal box on the right should be added to the See Also section of any relevant article using {{Portal|Australian roads}}, or use {{portal-inline|Australian roads}} for an inline version. Articles, images, videos and Did you know? facts can be nominated on the portal talk page – please watchlist the page if you think you might like to help maintain the portal. Cheers, Evad37 [talk] 10:26, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

New issue of the WikiProject Australian Roads newsletter

The second issue of The U Turn, the WikiProject Australian Roads newsletter, has been published. Read it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian Roads/News. - Evad37 [talk] 01:57, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 18:29, 20 January 2014 (UTC).

Possible HWY Cup in 2014

See this thread, where the idea came up to expand the WP:USRDCUP to all of WP:HWY. If other editors, especially those from outside the United States, would like to participate in our project's version of the WikiCup this year, please join in the conversation. We're open to ideas and suggestions. The Cup will probably take place during the middle months of this year. TCN7JM 01:15, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

If there is, in fact, interest in this. I've started a tentative sign-up page at User:TCN7JM/HWY Cup 2014. Please sign up there and ask on the talk page if you have any questions. Thanks. TCN7JM 04:28, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 690

Moved to WT:USRD § Interstate 690

 – Imzadi 1979 → 22:23, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/B4101 road. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:48, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Generalisation of the little road signs.

Hello,

At the moment the names and the way they are made and work are not by the same way. Like E50 and P 1. Maybe we could all name them the same way and make them all use the same kind of code?

Greetings, Thewombatguru (talk) 23:10, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

The better option would be to create the appropriate graphics and use {{jct}}. For US highways, we would use something like {{jct|state=MI|M|28}} to produce M-28. That way the graphic version of the sign isn't the link. If the link points to a non-existant article, the link would appear red instead of blue, readers would know they could clink on the highway name to get to another article, etc. among several other benefits. Imzadi 1979 → 23:13, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be a bit ugly to see the logo so you already know what road it is, but then you also get to see the link, it's not the readers fault that the article doesn't exist. Thewombatguru (talk) 23:41, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it would be better to let all road shields use the same template, but I think clickable shields would be better. Thewombatguru (talk) 12:47, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

The shields only get used in the infobox and junction list really. In other cases you just use a plainlink. I'm fairly certain the European style is against the Manual of Style in some form. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 20:11, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

From what I've seen of road articles on other wikis, it is fairly common to use the "European style". However, linking like that may be accepted or even encouraged on those wikis. –Fredddie™ 20:17, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

And since each edition of Wikipedia has its own Manual of Style (or equivalent), the style should conform here locally. Just as an infobox and linking methods on an American highway article should match that of a Spanish highway article in the Spanish Wikipedia, so should we attempt to harmonize matters of style on the English Wikipedia. Imzadi 1979 → 20:20, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I understand. Thewombatguru (talk) 20:23, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to Participate in a User Study - Final Reminder

Would you be interested in participating in a user study of a new tool to support editor involvement in WikiProjects? We are a team at the University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within WikiProjects, and we are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visual exploration tool for Wikipedia. Given your interest in this Wikiproject, we would welcome your participation in our study. To participate, you will be given access to our new visualization tool and will interact with us via Google Hangout so that we can solicit your thoughts about the tool. To use Google Hangout, you will need a laptop/desktop, a web camera, and a speaker for video communication during the study. We will provide you with an Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 22:52, 17 March 2014 (UTC).

WT:HWY/ACR#ACR for lists

We are discussing how lists should be reviewed at our A-Class review before a featured list candidate nomination. Your input is welcome. --Rschen7754 06:00, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Highways to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the Tool Labs tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 22:51, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

New template: infobox highway system

The US has had {{infobox state highway system}}, but now there is a more generic {{infobox highway system}} designed for a more globalized use. Imzadi 1979 → 21:56, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Citing a map

Please join us at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads#Citing a map for a discussion on possible updates to the format of map citations in Citation Style 1 using {{cite map}}. Imzadi 1979 → 16:41, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Highways At Wikimania 2014

Are you looking to recruit more contributors to your project?
We are offering to design and print physical paper leaflets to be distributed at Wikimania 2014 for all projects that apply.
For more information, click the link below.
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 12:15, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Lua {{jct}} deployment

The Lua version of {{jct}} will be deployed this weekend. Last-minute requests may be made at Template talk:Jct#Deployment of Lua version. -happy5214 00:35, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Assessment table of USRD is not in the main Highways WikiProject table

Hello,

I noticed that the statistics for articles in the scope of the US Roads department, User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/U.S. road transport, are not in the main Highways statistic table, Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Highways articles by quality statistics. I don't really understand why this is done like this, I personally think it would be better to maintain the most things in the parent project. Thewombatguru (talk) 09:18, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

(The following is a joke. Don't take it seriously.) I see this as a federal system. HWY only has the rights that its constituent projects (i.e. USRD) grant to it. If we (USRD) decide not to share our assessment stats with HWY, then so be it. -happy5214 09:38, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

If we did want to do this, the coding would be fairly easy – each national project banner would just need to include:

{{talk other|{{#if:{{class mask|{{{class|}}}}}|[[Category:{{class mask|{{{class|}}}}}-Class Road transport articles]]|[[Category:Unassessed Road transport articles]]}}}}

(Note: changed "Highway articles" to "Road transport articles" per Imzadi below - Evad37 [talk] 02:17, 2 May 2014 (UTC))

for quality-classes (but with the additional classes added to {{class mask}}), and something similar for importance assessments. - Evad37 [talk] 10:02, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Good to see that the coding wouldn't be hard. Thewombatguru (talk) 10:22, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Here's the full code:

{{talk other|<!-- Class category --> {{#if:{{class mask|{{{class|}}}|FQS=yes|future=yes|redirect=yes|draft=yes|book=yes|FM=yes|AL=AL}}|[[Category:{{class mask|{{{class|}}}|FQS=yes|future=yes|redirect=yes|draft=yes|book=yes|FM=yes|AL=AL}}-Class Road transport articles]]|[[Category:Unassessed Road transport articles]]}}<!-- Importance category -->[[Category:{{#switch:{{lc:{{{importance|}}}}}
 |top
 |high
 |mid
 |low      = {{ucfirst:{{lc:{{{importance|}}}}}}}
 |na       = NA
 |#default = {{#ifeq:{{class mask|{{{class|}}}|future=yes|AL=AL}}|NA|NA|Unknown}}}}-importance Road transport articles]]
}}

(Note: changed "Highway articles" to "Road transport articles" per Imzadi below - Evad37 [talk] 02:17, 2 May 2014 (UTC))

This could be put into a template, e.g. Template:WikiProject Highways/Assessment, so each project banner would just have to include {{WikiProject Highways/Assessment|class={{{class|}}}|importance={{{importance|}}}}}. - Evad37 [talk] 12:22, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok that would be cool. But still, why does the US use their own project and not just like europe or asia a parameter in the template on that particular article, like {{HWY|US=yes|class=C|importance=mid}}. Thewombatguru (talk) 15:28, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Simply put, USRD has more independence than the other roads projects/TFs. There's probably nobody at USRD that would support merging the templates in the foreseeable future. -happy5214 16:39, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I could be wrong but I think USRD predates HWY. –Fredddie™ 17:19, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know which project was formed first, but certainly both projects predate the idea of nesting sub-ordinate projects (i.e. Wikiproject New York as a sub project of Wikiproject US, etc.). Dave (talk) 17:30, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I looked it up. HWY was formed on January 27, 2004, by Spikey, while Rschen founded USRD on September 18, 2005. But {{USRD}} predates {{HWY}} by about 7 months. Both were created in 2006. -happy5214 17:40, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Iff we put such a code in the various national project banners, we should provide a separate category tree for tracking articles which are in HWY but not the sub projects. Otherwise when the leaderboard for HWY is created, we won't be able to track the total assessment values for HWY vs. HWY+USRD/CRWP/UKRD/INR/AURD/HKRD. Right now, the "Highways articles" assessment tree should be not be the one to contain the othe sub projects' articles because USRD, et al., are not part of HWY. USRD has always been an independent project. Imzadi 1979 → 17:46, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I have no strong opinion on this either way. From an organizational purist standpoint it makes sense to have the USRD be a topic within the larger scoped Highways project. However, I don't see it as a top priority for either project, especially given that the supposed point of a wikiproject is to facilitate co-ordination between editors with similar interests, which is still possible regardless of weather USRD is under HWY or not. This is more or less the same debate that occurred a few years ago when all the wikiprojects for U.S. States were merged into the umbrella project, Wikiproject US. That was a lot of work that accomplished ___________? (seriously, if you know, feel free to fill in that blank). The only thing I do know that it did accomplish is stir up wikidrama. In other words, if we want to merge, fine by me, but don't expect me to spend time on it.Dave (talk) 17:55, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I will oppose any visual merger of projects, either in the banner or in the projects themselves for a simple logistical reason. USRD has 5 departments and 57 taskforces (50 states, 4 topics, DC, PR, other Territories). There are also plans for the USRD banner to use the by-state tracking to pass through our assessments to the various state wikiprojects and possibly the national US one. Merging the banners together will be nothing but complicated for little to no benefit. (USRD is much more active than HWY has ever been, so it's not like we'd be "saving" an inactive subproject through merger, which was the stated reason for merging most of the states into WPUSA even if that didn't happen. In the end, WPUSA is pretty much inactive like most of the state projects.) CRWP and AURD also track by state or province and territory, something that the new INRD banner will do before it's rolled out in the next few weeks.

However, setting each national project banner and the main HWY template to pass assessments into a "Road transport articles" assessment tree would essentially do what Thewombatguru desires: produce a single assessment table for all of the projects. That's been a long-term goal of mine for a while so that we could have a bot update a table like WP:USRD/A/S or WP:CRWP/A/P with rows for HWY, each HWY task force, each of the national subprojects and then a total for everything. However, that project needs the INRD banner to be working first before we start playing with the AURD/CRWP/HKRD/HWY/INRD/UKRD/USRD banners for a combined assessment group.

Of note, the only "merger" that has happened between USRD and HWY involves ACR. The ACR that CRWP hosted was a short-lived clone of the USRD one, and we basically agreed to move the USRD/ACR process into HWY lock, stock, and barrel so that it could take provide the same function for HWY and every subproject. A proposal earlier this year to move USRD's Shields Dept. into HWY was dropped, and I think you'll find no desire for any additional merger on the front end. Imzadi 1979 → 18:41, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

As for Moabdave's comments above, USRD is already considered "under HWY", just as a subproject.

So yeah, there's lots of good reasons why USRD is still its own project. I like Imzadi's idea of each banner passing its assessments through to "Road transport articles" categories in order to get overall assessment, so I modified the code above to do that. - Evad37 [talk] 02:17, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

The banners are all working together to pass assessments into a common assessment tree. Now we just have to wait for the job queue to catch up and populate the categories. I'll be asking for the combined assessment table here shortly. Imzadi 1979 → 03:59, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

If I can help with anything from here on, just say so TheWombatGuru (talk) 12:02, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

RJL issues

See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Road junction lists#Mile or km and subsequent sections - Evad37 [talk] 12:45, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject Highways At Wikimania 2014

Please note: This is an updated version of a previous post that I made.

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 10:54, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

OSM relation and KML

How to create KML files from OSM relations ? Many KML files can be created there is easy way export osm relations. [1] .

After getting gpx http://kml2gpx.com/ use this ? Or is there any easy way -- naveenpf (talk) 17:11, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

{{Hwypeerreview}}

Template:Hwypeerreview (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 04:00, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

right-of-way

The usage of right-of-way and right of way is under discussion, see talk:Right of way (public throughway), where it is suggested that Right-of-way (transportation) also be merged into it, and the merged article be the primary topic. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 23:37, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Layout consistency

While trying to look up a proper layout format for Ontario Highway 407, I came to realize that even our many Featured articles on toll highways (Creek Turnpike and Kansas Turnpike are two I checked out) have no consistency when it comes to the top level article structure. That is, the placement of the RD, History, Tolls, Services, other unique sections, and Junction list. I propose that we standardize the placement of sections, with the sole exception of swapping the order of the RD and History, and the odd case where a unique section is better placed first (ex QEW's Name and signage section). Thoughts? - Floydian ^τ _¢ 21:18, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Notified: WP:CARD, WP:USRD, WP:UKRD, WP:AURD, WP:INRD, and WP:HKRD - Floydian ^τ _¢ 21:28, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Standards (WP:USRD/STDS) basically indicates that for USRD articles, the order should be: RD, History, Future, Services, Tolls, the RJL, Auxiliary/business/related routes and then the standard end sections (See also, References, External links, etc.) with the noted exception of flipping RD and History. I actually think Services and Tolls should be grouped after the RD since they deal with similar aspects of the current state of the roadway.

I also agree with the premise that other "unique" sections should generally appear after the standard prose sections and ahead of the RJL. The two sections I've used the most that aren't mentioned in USRD/STDS are for Memorial highway designations (with or without tourist route designations) and Historic bridges, and I think those fit better after the History (or History and Future) sections. Sections that deal with other highways related to the subject of the article, say a business route, should be after the RJL and ahead of the standard end sections. The same goes for an "In popular culture" section.* That way everything about the main subject highway is grouped together and terminates with the visually weighty junction/exit list table before moving on to other roads or stuff that's outside of the main topic. Imzadi 1979 → 22:56, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not too worried about this, as long as there's a logical progression of some sort. I would be opposed to putting the Major intersections at the top or in the middle though. --Rschen7754 16:50, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

• In my experience, with Highway 401, Queen Elizabeth Way and Highway 407 as examples, I think it makes sense to craft a standard for appearance sake and consistency between articles. Tolls make sense to group along with the RD, directly below it. Services on the other hand, often includes a table at the end of the section listing the official rest stops on the highway. As such, it makes sense to have that right before the junction table. So, I'd propose the following order:

• Lede
• Possible unique section (ie a section about the significance of the name)
• Route description -or- History (where the history is judged editorially to be far more significant than the description of the route)
• History (the standard order) -or- RD

• a Tolls section would proceed the RD
• a Future section would proceed the History

• Possible unique section(s) (ie. Historic designations and structures, Tourist routes, statues and other significant aesthetic features that may warrant a section since they are related to both the history and route)
• Services
• Junction list
• Business/Auxillary/Bypass/Connector/Alternate's
• In popular culture (sigh... list of movies and TV shows that include scenes on this road)

For the record, my main concern to be ironed out in this instance is the placement of the Tolls and Services sections. -- Floydian ^τ _¢ 19:31, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I disagree with your logic a bit. The table you've included with Services is unnecessary. In the US, we've listed service areas in the exit list in cases where they're worth detailing, especially since they'd have their mileposts/kilometers included. Based on that, and taking into account the desire for consistency for future FT or GT nominations, I'd go with:

• Lead
• Name, if needed as distinct from a general memorial highway names section. This could be integrated into a mini-lead for the RD section as well.
• RD
• Services, if applicable or not made a subsection of the RD on non-toll roads
• Tolls, if applicable
• History (including historical toll changes)
• Future, if applicable
• Other appropriate sections like general Cultural significance, Memorial highway names, or Historic bridges
• RJL
• Related highways like alternate/auxiliary/business/etc
• Specific popular culture references, but only when necessary. See below.

This would keep items related to what a driver would experience driving the length of the road together (RD, services, tolls), group the historical details next, including names applied in the past and bridges deemed historical.

One note is the difference between "Cultural significance" and "In popular culture" that I would make here. CS would be specific to the road, like on M-1 (Michigan highway) or articles related to U.S. Route 66, and it's more than the road just appearing or being referenced. This would be a case where the cultural ties around the road are more enduring, and they form the basis for a National Scenic Byway designation (or similar). The IPC-type section is just disconnected references to the road appearing "in popular culture", and honestly, if it's just a single scene, a good writer can add to the RD something like, "as <road> passed through <location>, it was used as a filming location for <movie/TV show>" and eliminate the need for the section. Otherwise, CS stuff is related to the history of the road, but in a fashion that's not related to physical changes to the roadbed and its routing. Imzadi 1979 → 21:09, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

One reason to standardize the order is related to Featured/Good Topics. Take a look at WP:WIAFT, and you'd see that the first recommendation is: "The structure of the articles is similar, with the same section titles and order where possible." Honestly, I'm almost of the opinion that the allowance to move the history section up in the order should be removed in favor of greater consistency. I know most states in the US are far from being close to considering FTs/GTs in most cases, but this is a case where building in consistent practices early makes things easier when we get a group of articles to that stage later. Imzadi 1979 → 20:50, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

If one aim is to "keep items related to what a driver would experience driving the length of the road together" then perhaps the RJL should follow this group (RD, services, tolls) rather than following history, future, and other. Downsize43 (talk) 01:49, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Except that the reason it hasn't been is that it is visually very weighty. In terms of traditional page layout, such a large element would be located at the bottom or inside (gutter) of a page rather than at the top or outside of a page. Applying that principle to Wikipedia layout, where we lack inside vs. outside (since we don't have two-page spreads), it should still go to the bottom of the article. Imzadi 1979 → 02:24, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I kind of agree with rschen on this. So long as there is a natural progression to the article, it shouldn't matter what order the sections are in. It's more important that the sections are there at all than their order. –Fredddie™ 03:09, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Article: "Highway systems by country"

Hi, I've posted a question on the article's talk page, that I think is somewhat central to its development ?
-- 84.106.90.249 (talk) 08:11, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Adjusting templates for the Winter skin

Apparently, WMF is working on a new skin to replace Vector (not that it seems so long since Vector was introduced, but that's neither here nor there). It's called Winter, and there's a prototype on WMF Labs (this should link to a display of Creek Turnpike so you can see what a typical road article might look like under Winter).

Since Winter seems to change a few styles we rely on in the site CSS, we will need to make some changes to the styling of our templates to ensure that they continue to display the same way. Most of these, I think, are simply left unspecified and thus depend on the site CSS at present, and so explicitly specifying their current appearance should ensure that they appear the same way under Winter (overriding the skin CSS). It is worth noting that Winter is currently just a prototype (prototype v0.6 for whatever that's worth), so the style could radically change before it is deployed, but specifying CSS rules helps future-proof us to an extent regardless of what changes in Winter before it is released.

Points of discussion:

• Table styling seems to have been radically changed in terms of alignment. Rhis mostly affects the standard junction lists. As of right now, Winter changes table cells to center-alignment at the top of the cell. While this is not so bad for the location cells—I quite like the center alignment for the counties and cities, and there's an argument to be made that top-aligning multi-row cells makes the information easier to read—we probably don't want the destination and notes columns centered. Centering the cells breaks US-style bannered routes since the banners no longer line up with the route shield. Distances are right-aligned because the template overrides the default to right-align those columns. We may want to adjust the top-of-cell alignment as well, since it causes route shields and text to line up funny.
• Table sorting and collapsing is currently not working properly. This is most likely due to the skin's alpha status. We should keep an eye on this as development continues.
• The Winter skin shunts infoboxes and other floating boxes into a "right rail" of such content. As such, the KML box is much more easily accessed, as it appears much closer to the top of the page. This may make it desirable to deprecate the inline view, although this may be undesirable due to users who choose to continue using the Monobook and Vector skins. @Happy5214: is it possible to detect the user's skin using Lua, to allow us to automatically disable the inline view for Winter users only?
• {{Infobox road}} appears correct, for the most part. The heading boxes extend out of the right side of the infobox for me on Creek Turnpike, but on other pages they don't (Firefox on Linux).
• {{Infobox road small}} is badly broken, because Winter shunts them all to the right rail area, so they no longer line up with the section they are discussing. See [2].

If you have a spare moment, use the Winter prototype to view some pages in your area and report back on any issues it causes to page layout. We should also discuss proposed changes to the standard junction list and infoboxes to prepare for the change, particularly to infobox road small, because I am at a loss to how we can resolve that particular breakage. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 07:05, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Some quick comments:

• I would set the templates to override the horizontal centering and vertical alignment as you describe. That's a fairly easy fix that will make sure certain behaviors that need to stay consistent do so between skins for the reasons you describe.
• The way it shunts all infoboxes over is going to be very problematic, especially on articles like M-553 (Michigan highway) where there are the secondary infoboxes for related highways.
• I would not deprecate the inline view with {{Attached KML}} because I don't think putting the links to the KML file and its associated edit link in the upper space would be a good idea.
• The infoboxes are looking odd in a few places. On the M-553 article, the termini have odd text alignment in the infobox. The bottom of "M-35" lines up with the bottom of the marker as does "Gwinn". The word "near" looks like it is vertically centered with the marker. (It could be lining up with the top of the marker, but since it's all lower case, it's hard to tell.) The northern terminus is even worse, the "US 41", "M-28" and "Marquette" are at the bottom of the line, but the slash and the "in" are up in the area.
• It appears that navboxes are not supported at all. Michigan State Trunkline Highway System should have one that links to all of the other articles on state highway systems in the US, but it's not present.

I'll have more later when I have more time to explore various articles. Imzadi 1979 → 14:18, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I got my terminology confused there. I meant disabling the title links so that only the floating box appears in the right rail. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 18:31, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

The small infoboxes being on the right wouldn't be such a bad thing if they'd align properly with the content. The gray RJLs might also be an issue. -happy5214 23:44, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, although I think the structure of how the right rail is composed would preclude any content therein from snapping to a particular . It looks as though the right rail is a div set to the height of the page, with all of its content set to populate sequentially from the top of the div. If that's the case, there is little way to specify the location of the infobox on that rail other than by exact coordinates, which is not a feasible way of accomplishing what we need to accomplish.

Is this the right venue to be discussing this? Yeah, we have a few templates and tables and things that don't look quite so good in the current prototype, but from the looks of it this will by no means be confined to the HWY projects, and might be better fixed by sitewide CSS/js (assuming the issues are still present in later versions of Winter). - Evad37 [talk] 14:51, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Recent happenings have illustrated we cannot count on the WMF to fix any issues or listen to any community feedback before going live. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 17:30, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Equally, we can not expect the WMF to fix any issues or listen if we don't tell them what's wrong. But in any case, a lot could be fixed by going to WP:VPT and getting our local coders and admins to add code to the sitewide CSS for Winter, for example to make wikitables look the same as in Vector, or to enable collapsible tables, or add a new class for infoboxes that should not to be moved to the right rail. Surely that is preferable to adding CSS rules to every table or other element in every single wikipedia page and template. - Evad37 [talk] 01:29, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

This is true, and Imzadi and I have left comments on the Winter project talk page (if you can call it that, it uses Flow) sharing the problems we have encountered. However, WMF has a track record as of late of not actually responding to community concerns (see the MediaViewer rollout as a recent example) so we need to prepare for the very real possibility that WMF simply does not adequately address any community input. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 07:53, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

That right rail is... wasteful and inhibitive at best. These skin guys are as annoying as Facebook. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 17:09, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I've noticed that it appears to break one of the hurricane infoboxes, which is used similar to infobox road small: [3] Perhaps we can collaborate with WP:TROP to create an alternate CSS class for "infoboxes that aren't to be shunted into the right rail". —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 18:31, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if a workaround for the Infobox road small problem is to add |id= so we can link the infobox to the relevant section. Example: add |id=Lincoln_Highway to the Lincoln Highway IRS on US 30 in Iowa and the Lincoln Highway infobox title would become a #target wikilink to Lincoln Highway. Just pretend that #target links work... –Fredddie™ 16:34, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

That would still require conscious action on the reader's part to associate the box with the section. The easiest way to resolve this particular issue would be to create a custom CSS class or hardcode the CSS, both of which would make it impossible for Winter to associate the content with an infobox and put it in the rail. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 17:52, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

To answer the question on detecting skins through Lua: no, it can't be done. There are various caching and security issues associated with changing content within Lua based on user preferences. In short, such facilities will never be implemented. -happy5214 21:17, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

And this is why we convert junction lists to templates... anyway, the centering issues and the IRS issues seem the most pressing. --Rschen7754 02:05, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Jcttop for Canada

is there a version of Jcttop which uses Province instead of County? I would like to use it in Alaska Highway#Major intersections. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 23:58, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

It wouldn't use Province instead of County because it would use State/Province as the first column, then County, then Location. However in this case, since it would be so specialized needing a label to deal with the left-most column being either a state, province or territory, and the next column being a borough (Alaska) or regional municipality (British Columbia), I think you're going to have to use a hand-coded solution with class="wikitable plainrowheaders hlist" to match other tables.

@Fredddie and Floydian: do either of you have an idea here? Imzadi 1979 → 00:22, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

If you are looking for a template-based solution, Australia uses {{AUSinttop}}, which allows for overriding the column headings if needed. E.g. Monaro Highway uses {{AUSinttop|state_col=State/Territory|sub1={{abbr|LGA|Local government area}}/District|... other parameters ...}}, rather than the default sub1 column heading "LGA". A similar template could be created for Canada. - Evad37 [talk] 00:48, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Evad is on the right track. There is always the province-neutral "Division" in lieu of "County". For BC, I'd suggest List of regional districts of British Columbia for regions. (@Denelson83: does this sound about right?) Yukon is a bit muddier because it seems to be divided into the Klondike and the not-Klondike, and that division isn't exactly clear. –Fredddie™ 01:04, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Input requested at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of highways numbered C1

It would be great if editors in this area could comment there on how the nominated list may relate to the other contents of Category:Lists of roads sharing the same title, and why those lists are set up and titled the way that they are. Thanks, postdlf (talk) 15:10, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Category ?

Curb, Shoulder (road), Gore (road), Street gutter, curb cut, Road verge, Median strip ?Xb2u7Zjzc32 (talk) 10:55, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

@Xb2u7Zjzc32: I don't understand what the question is supposed to be. All of those articles, apart from Road verge, are part of Category:Road infrastructure as they are "infrastructure related to road transport" (that category's description), which seems appropriate. - Evad37 [talk] 12:40, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

@Evad37: these articles describe how a road interfaces with non-road things, so I thought that the taxonomy of Category:Road infrastructure should be refined to sub-groups. Any suggestions for sub-group names ? Also, a grass lawn Gore (road) at a road fork, might have a separate name, especially in the UK, and not have been included in Category:Road infrastructureXb2u7Zjzc32 (talk) 18:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

"Highway patrol" and "Traffic police"

The meaning of "traffic police" and "highway patrol", and the name of the article "highway patrol" is under discussion, see talk:highway patrol -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 03:34, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

County Roads

Several county roads are up for renaming, see Talk:County_Road_3_(Florida) -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 23:50, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Requesting comments for an update to List of expressways and highways in Malaysia

Hi. I'm planning to rewrite the above list article. I started a draft at my userspace with the original article, stripped off a few unnecessary columns from the tables, removed a lot of boldfacing and added a few columns as inspired by these articles List of roads in Metro Manila and National Tourist Routes. The starting table idea can be found on User:Pizza1016/List of roads in Malaysia (the first unfinished table; ignore everything else). I would like to see whether this is a suitable table layout and whether any improvements can be made before I continue filling in the rest of the data into the table. Thanks! Pizza1016 (talk | contribs) 15:14, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The US Roads WikiProject recently came up with a standardized scheme, and that was used for the tables on List of Interstate Highways in Michigan, which recently passed WP:FLC. That table layout would be good to emulate. One of my biggest complaints with the Malaysian articles is that they use graphics inline as test. That is a big no-no in the MOS. Please use actual text instead of the graphics, like "Such roads can be distinguished through their route numbers, which always begin with the letter E, such as E1 for the north section of the North–South Expressway." In the US, we do use the highway marker graphics in various tables, but we say they must be followed by the text number.

Another thing: I would make your notes as concise as possible. If the reader wants to know more, he or she will go to the article. The wall of text in the description cell for E1's first segment is ten times longer than what I'd prefer to see. In fact, I wouldn't give a description at all, just concise notes. Imzadi 1979 → 22:16, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The description column alone makes the whole table tl;dr for me. If there must be so much text for each line, I would suggest not using a table and using the format similar to Bannered routes of U.S. Route 61 or List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile. If the table stays, it should follow the {{Routelist row}} format, which can be used for Malaysia. –Fredddie™ 01:45, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I concur with the above two comments, and would add that the photo column should be removed – it doesn't resize proportionately on smaller resolution screens (eg mobile devices and ipads), making the other columns unnecessarily narrow and leaving much whitespace above and below the image. Also note that the {{Routelist row}} format need not be followed precisely, regional differences could be accommodated as long as basic premise is followed (much like the variations allowed in MOS:RJL) - i.e. columns, with suitable headings, for: the route, road name(s) (if applicable), length (both km and mi), terminii, date columns (if the information is known), and a notes column. E.g. List of road routes in Western Australia uses the headings "Route | Component roads | From | Via | To | Length | Notes" (but I would suggest that separate length columns for km and mi would be better, this table format was devised prior to the development of {{Routelist row}} and Michigan's FL) - Evad37 [talk] 02:19, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Specific file types sent by maintainer of the Dutch roads, Rijkswaterstaat. How to open?

Hello,

Rijkswaterstaat, the corporation that maintains all A-routes in the Netherlands, sent me a bunch of files with weird file type like .shp, .sbx, .shp and a lot more. I don't know how top open them, nor does the one who sent them to me...

I've uploaded them to Google Drive, https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4AQqaVpOz_ganoyQWVnbTFTM0E&usp=sharing , could someone tell me how to handle these types of file?

TheWombatGuru (talk) 12:17, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe Shapefile? — Revi 12:20, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Those are definitely shapefiles. Most standard GIS programs can open them. -happy5214 12:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I've downloaded a bunch of programs and can't get it to work, do you know a program that should work for sure? TheWombatGuru (talk) 13:39, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

QGIS is a free one you can try - Evad37 [talk] 15:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, those are definitely GIS files, but you need the whole set of files (look for five files with the same name but different extensions) or the software won't work. –Fredddie™ 16:38, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I tried QGis but when I want to open it it says it can't because a .dll file is missing. I do have several sets of files with the same name and different extensions. TheWombatGuru (talk) 16:48, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2014_December_30#Template:Infobox_Australian_road

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2014_December_30#Template:Infobox_Australian_road – proposed merging of {{Infobox Australian road}} with {{Infobox road}}. Thanks. Evad37 [talk] 02:40, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Have a look at North–South Expressway Northern Route

Hi again! I decided to rewrite the entire article above the other day (it was yesterday actually). Unfortunately I couldn't find any reliable secondary sources – most of the sites that pop up on search results are self-published websites, blogs, fan pages, etc. so there's pretty much only the official website for sources. I did search the Malaysian news websites for the expressway but pretty much all of the results were regarding accidents, incidents, congestion, etc. along the expressway – which I don't know whether I should include or not, since it would get outdated pretty fast, and there would be a long list of just accidents (and some of them would be incomplete reporting as the news rarely follow up on the incidents after the first reporting). Also the article format that I followed (or at least tried to), the Pennsylvania Turnpike, has a huge section on the history of the turnpike (which I couldn't find any reliable info for the expressway in question), and has nothing about any incidents that may have occurred (I'm not sure if there are any). Anyway, I hope you guys can have a look and give some feedback. Also, if someone could help me align the colour legend in the bottom row of the junction list properly (to the centre), it would be greatly appreciated, because I just can't get it to work. Thanks! - Pizza1016 (talk | contribs) 10:50, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

@Pizza1016: I made a number of changes to put the Junction list table into compliance with MOS:RJL.

1. I added hlist to the top of the table so that the color key would be properly centered at the bottom.
2. I removed the green border from the header and footer rows of the table.
3. I removed the column for the number of lanes.
4. I removed the background from the exit column. Like the green border, it's non-standard.
5. I removed the inappropriate use of the gray color in the exit column; gray = former or closed in MOS:RJL, and there is no color for local-lanes-only exits.
   • If there were such a color, it would span the entire row like the concurrency color.
   • You'll find that in some American articles, where the exits have been renumbered, there is an Old exit column that's grayed out, and that's to note the former status of those numbers.
6. I also changed the coding for the exit column so that it wasn't starting with !, which made those cells into headers. Yes, they should be centered, but they shouldn't be bolded.
7. Bridges, laybys, etc, should span into the notes column.
8. There's a big inconsistency with graphics and highway numbers. Take the fourth row of the table with "Jalan Padang Donan" as the intersecting highway. It has a 277 marker in front of it, but nowhere in that line is the 277 number referenced. Scroll down to the row for exit 173, and it has "Federal Route 175" with the 175 marker. That's good, and for the first one, it should have something like "Jalan Padang Donan (Federal Route 277)".(The Federal Route 175 row should be using an en dash and not a hyphen, by the way.)
9. The row for "Darul Aman Highway" has inconsistent coloration. It's either green or its red, but it shouldn't be both.
10. The row for "Kepala Batas layby (northbound)" should be colored red since it has incomplete access.
11. in all uses of the colors, it would be nice if they had the tool tips that popped up with the explanation. I know the templates we use in the US automatically add the code necessary for it. If I get a chance, I'll find that code for you to add.

I hope this helps. Imzadi 1979 → 11:57, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: Thank you so much for your help! I'll respond to a few of your points above.

• For the local lanes colouring (#5), I'd like to have the local-only exits distinguished from the other exits at the very least. Should I use the red colour for "incomplete access" then, another colour or no colour at all? It kind of depends on how its looked at: in one perspective, it's complete because it serves all directions of the two interchanging roads, while the other view is that it doesn't serve the express lanes so its incomplete. Also, if I recall, when I went there years ago, there weren't any exit numbers for the local lanes anymore (the lanes were built in 2008 or something like that?), so it would count as old exit numbers...I think? Then again, that was at least five years ago or so when I haven't stumbled into the editing world of Wikipedia (I was small back then as well), my finding is probably WP:OR, and there are zero reliable sources to back up my claim (at least I couldn't find any). Anyhow, your thoughts on both of these matters?
• Road naming (#8): What I did (and what has been done by others working on Malaysian road articles, which of course are not really following MOS) is that if there is a name, we use it instead of the route number. This is easy for expressways since every route has its own name (kind of; E1, E8 and E37 are special cases that have two names, but even then the general perception is that one name equals one route, so we use the name regardless). Unlike in the US (probably), everyone here says "his car broke down on the NKVE", not "his car broke down on expressway 6". However, when it comes to other routes, they may or may not have a name, or certain segments have names and others don't, or even one name can have two different route numbers on separate sections (it really is a doozy). I know that in MOS:RJL: Any highway designation represented by the graphic shall be represented in text as part of the name or number listed for the roadway (I didn't create the RJL by the way. Someone else made it and I just started modifying it, so it was already that way to begin with.) Route 175 was one of those without names and route 277 was one of those with a name. Hence, being name-dominant, the name for 277 was written out while 175 stayed as 175. So maybe, as a compromise, we could probably follow the "Australian style" as I see here in MOS:RJL, where the name is written first. I can think of a few possible layouts:

Exit	Name	Destinations	Notes
162	Perai I/C	Butterworth Outer Ring Road ( FT 1) Butterworth Outer Ring Road (Expressway E17/Federal Route 1) – Perai FT 1 Jalan Bahru (Federal Route 1) – Bukit Mertajam, Bukit Tengah	In brackets, writing the type of route and then whatever is in the route marker. I'm afriad this might make the destination column wider though.
...or...
162	Perai I/C	Butterworth Outer Ring Road ( FT 1) Butterworth Outer Ring Road (Expressway 17/Federal Route 1) – Perai FT 1 Jalan Bahru (Federal Route 1) – Bukit Mertajam, Bukit Tengah	In brackets, writing the type of route and then writing only the number in the marker (since E stands for expressway). Also will make the destination column wider.
...or...
162	Perai I/C	Butterworth Outer Ring Road ( FT 1) Butterworth Outer Ring Road (E17)(1) or (E17/1) or (1/E17) – Perai FT 1 Jalan Bahru (1) – Bukit Mertajam, Bukit Tengah	In brackets, writing only what's inside the route markers, without expansion. When using the forward slash, it might confuse others as to what E17/1 is.
...or...
162	Perai I/C	Butterworth Outer Ring Road ( FT 1) Butterworth Outer Ring Road (E17)(FT1) or (E17/FT1) or (FT1/E17) – Perai FT 1 Jalan Bahru (1) – Bukit Mertajam, Bukit Tengah	In brackets, writing only what's inside the route markers, without expansion. As to not come across as confusing, federal routes are prefixed with "FT" as what some users here have used, although that really means "Federal Territory". - Added 14:47, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
...or...
162	Perai I/C	Butterworth Outer Ring Road ( FT 1) Butterworth Outer Ring Road (E17) – Perai FT 1 Jalan Bahru (1) – Bukit Mertajam, Bukit Tengah	In brackets, writing only the route number that the road name is linked to (i.e. excluding the concurrency/overlap, since those are rarely, if not never, signposted)
...or...
162	Perai I/C	Butterworth Outer Ring Road E17 ( FT 1 1) Butterworth Outer Ring Road – Perai FT 1 1 Jalan Bahru – Bukit Mertajam, Bukit Tengah	Writing the numbers next to their respective markers. The route number might be confused as part of the name however.
...or...
162	Perai I/C	Butterworth Outer Ring Road ( FT 1) E17/1 (Butterworth Outer Ring Road) – Perai FT 1 1 (Jalan Bahru) – Bukit Mertajam, Bukit Tengah	The old fashioned way, though as I said, the name is usually dominant in Malaysia. Again, E17/1 looks confusing.
...or combinations of any of the above.

I'm not sure what to do with the routes without names though. They would likely not follow any of the above conventions.

• The "Darul Aman Highway" row (#9): That's because it is both a concurrency end and also is an incomplete interchange (it only allows entry into the expressway). I'm not sure which colour (i.e. information) would be more important or dominant though.
• Laybys (#10): That would mean, however, every layby and rest area minus two would fall under that category of incomplete interchange. As you may have noticed, I added the term "separated" in almost all of the laybys and rest areas where access is permitted in both directions because while they have the same name and are practically opposite each other, they are not linked in any way – pedestrians and vehicles on the northbound side of the rest area cannot cross over to the southbound side (without risking their lives, of course). Hence they can also be considered as different laybys despite being identical in many ways. The "minus two" rest areas that I've stated are those with the "vehicles separated" term i.e. pedestrians can cross over but vehicles cannot, so northbound side vehicles stay northbound and southbound ones stay southbound, which still kind of means the same thing in terms of routing. In short, there's no U-turn without exiting the ticket system and paying for the amount you've travelled.
• Tooltip code (#11): That would be great, especially since a lot of templates are now being converted into Lua modules, the latter which I still can't understand for the life of me XP. Maybe once I start university, just maybe... - Pizza1016 (talk | contribs) 14:29, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Usually most accidents aren't considered notable. As far as finding articles, you may need to look in databases for newspaper archives (like in a university library). In a pinch, old maps can be used to pinpoint changes in the route, though there are limitations to that method, and they don't say why the changes were made. --Rschen7754 18:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: That could work, if I lived there. I don't know whether they have archives of Malaysian newspapers in the libraries near here where I live, and I doubt that there are any articles about the expressway in other countries' newspapers. I could possibly check at my university's library once I get there (which is not in Malaysia, by the way), but I'm not sure if I would have the time to edit like I am now once I begin my course. - Pizza1016 (talk | contribs) 00:49, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

You may also want to ask around on mswiki, or look at Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library to see if you luck out too. --Rschen7754 00:52, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)