Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Archive 4

Re-upload all shields?

Image:I-494.svg and Image:I-794.svg have defied all of my attempts to purge and re-purge so that the images show up (see Crosstown Expressway (Interstate 494)). Is it better to just re-upload all of the shields and hope this problem goes away once and for all? —Rob (talk) 19:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It's been confirmed above that reuploading the shields is a guaranteed way to fix the bug. I say go ahead. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 20:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Are we talking reuploading all the shields, or just the buggy ones? I don't think we need to reupload all of them, I think the bug just comes from those made in Adobe. So maybe just those. --Holderca1 21:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Only the buggy ones. No point in reuploading ones that already work. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 21:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I've already reuploaded I-76's shield, which is problematic. I have a bot on Commons, so you can tell me which shields need to be reuploaded.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 23:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

If my memory serves me right, all of the U.S. Route and Interstate shields (except some of the newer ones like Image:US 20A.svg) that haven't been reuploaded are glitchy. Some state systems that may be affected are Florida and Virginia, but I'm not positive. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 23:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

As I have mentioned once before, it's probably SPUI's using Adobe Illustrator to create the SVGs.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 23:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

<sarcasm> Yes, let's blame everything on SPUI, since he's been gone for months. Everything must be his fault. </sarcasm> -- NORTH ^talk 23:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Most Virginia shields were uploaded by NE2. Only I believe 789, 895, and very few others are by SPUI. I personally haven't seen any problems with them though. --MPD ^{T / C} 02:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Would you believe that re-uploading I-494.svg and I-794.svg didn't work? I might try something a little more drastic... —Rob (talk) 04:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Try clearing your cache. I-494 works for me on the article linked at the top of this section. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 04:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I re-uploaded Image:US 278.svg, but was not able to fix User:NE2/shields. --NE2 04:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I opened it in Inkscape (OS X, not that it matters) and re-saved it. That finally did the trick. I'll try doing the same to U.S. 278 now. —Rob (talk) 04:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

WOW! It works! :) --MPD ^{T / C} 05:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I came here from Bugzilla:5463. I noticed a few weeks back that in [1] the image [2] wasn't shown. This was the case even after I purged commons:Image:I-476.svg several times and even after I reuploaded the image. Still the 62px image doesn't work. Any solutions to this problem? -- Paddu 21:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

What is that link you put in there, are you sure you have that right, it has two extensions, svg and png, I-476.svg shows up fine for me. Why do you want it at 62px, seems like a totally random size. --Holderca1 21:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I uploaded a new version at 22:06 23 Feb 2007. That could be why it shows up fine -- I replace the broken SVGs as I hear about them. —Rob (talk) 22:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

My computer and browser requires a .png extension after the .svg extension in order to show up. Sometimes, though. Only if I'm changing the file name in the address bar do I need a .png extension. It's weird, i know. If I go to a shield, right click, and select "copy image location" (PC), and then paste it, it adds a .png extension. --MPD ^{T / C} 23:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that's because IE 6 doesn't support SVGs, so Wikipedia automatically converts SVGs to PNGs (but possibly just for that browser). —Rob (talk) 17:22, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Firefox. But doesn't really matter though; the SVGs work after they're reuploaded. --MPD ^{T / C} 17:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Recent articles for deletion

I have solicited a response to recent listings at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. You are invited to come participate. --Iamunknown 05:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rhode Island Route 11; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Newark Airport Interchange --NE2 12:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The "States traversed" section

Copied from Talk:U.S. Route 20:

So... what's the balance between "a summary of U.S. Route 20 in X" and "not enough content"?

Thanks! —Rob (talk) 17:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Dutchess County Route 33 AfD

Dutchess County Route 33 is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dutchess County Route 33. Please review the article and participate. Alansohn 02:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to abstain from the AfD since I don't want to encourage a slippery slope of more road AfDs, but honestly wouldn't it be a good idea to draw the inherent notability line at state highways and above? I think the politician guidelines in WP:BIO set a good precedent: members of nationwide and statewide legislatures (thus Interstates, US routes, and state routes) are considered notable, while local politicians (thus county-level routes and city streets) must have an additional claim to fame to merit their own article. Krimpet 03:30, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Recent policy changes limiting primary sources

There have been recent changes in the merging of WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:RS into WP:ATT, along with related changes at WP:N. One thing that may affect geographic projects is the tightening of the requirement for multiple secondary sources for all articles. Many geographic articles are created from a single primary source like census data or topo maps. Technically, this would subject these articles to deletion. If you have not checked these policies lately, you should. And be sure to check the supporting discussions. Remember WP policies and guidelines are supposed to incorporate a broad consensus. Dhaluza 20:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Given that any commercial map that shows the road can be added to the references, this "threat" has no teeth. I also don't see anything at Wikipedia:Attribution that matches what you say. --NE2 21:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:ATT states the following: "Edits that rely on primary sources should only make descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge." Route descriptions and such that rely on maps and topos are perfectly valid in this regard; they use maps to back up descriptive claims that can easily be backed up by consulting the map. Krimpet 00:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Merger

Due to the number of contributors to this project taking a big hit following SRNC, I think we need to look at some consolidation. I am proposing we merge WP U.S. Interstate Highways and WP U.S. Highways into this project. This would consolidate conversations to a central location. It would cut down on a lot of administrative tasks between the three. WP:IH and WP:USH have less highways combined than most of the states. --Holderca1 11:29, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't really know how I feel about that. I'm leaning toward opposing this...but I'd like to hear from other editors on this first before I really take a stand. --MPD ^{T / C} 21:28, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems like a good idea to me, since Interstates and U.S. Highways are just state or local highways with funny-looking shields. Other than the involvement of the FHWA and AASHTO, there's nothing that differentiates the process of writing them from that of any other U.S. road. --NE2 21:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't see what the difference would be one way or the other. For me at least, I treat all highway articles the same for the bulk of my editing. The individual state WikiProjects (and USH and IH) just deal with little idiosynchracies between the states. -- NORTH ^talk 21:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the benefit is that we'd have a centralized place to discuss. --NE2 21:39, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Then why not just redirect the talk pages for IH and USH to here? --MPD ^{T / C} 21:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I oppose this vehemently. An article on an Interstate has a distinctly different composition than that of a U.S. route. For the most part, the "centralized discussion" argument is moot: most of the discussion already occurs here anyway. It's not as if consolidation will lead to more getting done. Someone still has to make edits to work on the articles, and if the same amount of editors are present, it will take just as long to make the edits whether there is consolidation or not. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 21:41, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

What would be the difference between the article on Interstate 68 and the article on U.S. Route 48 had it not been redesignated in 1989? --NE2 22:09, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I also don't understand what difference there is between the composition of an Interstate and a U.S. Route. In my opinion they should be the composed the same if they aren't that way already. I personally believe all road articles should have the same basic structure. --Holderca1 14:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I support redirecting the talk pages as MPD suggested, centralized discussion is a good thing, but there's enough differences between writing about Interstates and US routes that it's a good thing to have separate style guides and such. Krimpet 23:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox road

The new maintenance parameter puts a redlink on every state infobox that doesn't yet have the necessary template added. Not to mention that I don't think it's such a good idea, since some states have several different agencies that maintain the roads (NJ and MD come to mind. I'm going to revert again – if you find a way to do it so redlinks don't appear, then I'll let it stay, but I'd prefer the discussion happened on-wiki next time. -- NORTH ^talk 22:01, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, sometimes some discussions won't happen on-wiki. It is, in fact, sometimes easier to have a talk on IRC, have a drink, and implement the change, since it can be implemented quicker and can be done without straw polls.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 22:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's done behind the scenes, then there's no way you can show the changes reflect consensus. Imagine if MPD and I decided to hold the discussion on WT:USRD/ELG off-wiki.

I changed my mind about reverting, mainly because I noticed that it's not falsely claiming the Garden State Parkway is maintained by NJDOT. Just next time you make a change to a template, don't leave me with broken infoboxes for so long. (You could have avoided that by creating the sub-templates first, then changing {{infobox road}}.) And I guess this is fine since once it's implemented properly, it's a relatively minor change, but any major changes to the project need to have on-wiki discussion, so that (a) everyone can participate, and (b) we have some sort of discussion to point to afterwards. Telling me three users discussed it on IRC isn't enough. -- NORTH ^talk 22:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, the only reason the line isn't showing up on Garden State Parkway is because it uses the "highway_name" parameter. I have a feeling we're still going to run into problems with regular unnamed highways that aren't maintained by the main agency. NJ 73 for instance is NJDOT-maintained for most of its length, but county maintained near its eastern terminus. -- NORTH ^talk 22:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Problems can be solved if we change it so that if you use the maint= parameter, it supercedes the default "maint" template for the state. I'd do it myself, but I don't have the time at the moment, and I'm only 75% sure I'd know how.

I have a test case at User:Northenglish/Sandbox3. It's the NJ 17 infobox, but I added in the line |maint=New Jersey Turnpike Authority. If someone could fix {{infobox road}} so that my test case read that it was maintaned by the Turnpike Authority instead of NJDOT, that would get rid of (I think) all my qualms about the change. -- NORTH ^talk 04:53, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

This maint parameter should be hidden unless explicitly called. Some states have numbered routes that are not maintained by the state DOT. Why can't this new parameter be made optional? --Polaron | Talk 05:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, that's what I'm saying. I've tried doing the fix I proposed above with no success. -- NORTH ^talk 06:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I've discovered a problem my proposed fix won't solve. What are we to do with an article like County Route 527 (New Jersey), which is maintained by the highway departments of god knows how many counties? A list like that shouldn't be in the infobox, but the infobox already uses state=NJ County with a redlink for Template:Infobox road/NJ County maint ready and waiting. -- NORTH ^talk 06:58, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, the template is fixed, just put maint=[[Whoever maintains it here]], no need for the creation of a bunch of subpages. --Holderca1 20:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

3dis and browse boxes

Since most 3dis are intra-state, I'm going to start moving multi-state 3di browse boxes into the infobox (there's 2 at most for any given 3di). They're essentially treated like state roads, which all use Infobox Road or a variation thereof, and the browse info won't be too big for the section. See Interstate 280 (Illinois-Iowa). —Rob (talk) 22:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. For 3dis that are intra-state, it's fine; a number of state WPs do this anyway. But having two browse rows in the infobox the way that version of I-280 just looks awkward. -- NORTH ^talk 22:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Having to scroll down to the end of the page (or hit "End", alternatively) every time I want to move on seems pretty awkward too, though. —Rob (talk) 22:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, your edit summary said something like "consistency of sorts", but your comment doesn't have much to do with consistency.

I think what would be consistent would be for all single-state (whether state, US, or Interstate) routes to have it in the infobox, and multi-state routes to have it at the bottom. To me, the issue with having it the way you currently do on I-280 is that it's not clear what those links are. I know it seems like common sense, but it's missing that header, (i.e. the line that says Illinois state highway system on Illinois Route 5. For multi-state routes, having it at the bottom in a box that's labeled "browse numbered routes" takes care of that. -- NORTH ^talk 22:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It depends what context - I'm thinking about "position on the page" and you're thinking about "easily identifiable as a state-level browse". The multi-state ones, with 10+ states, I can understand leaving off the top of the page. But I would go so far as to edit {{Infobox road}} so it says "Browse state routes" in a row above the previous and next routes (for multistate 3dis only) if the browse parameter is not empty.

I'd even be willing to wager that that particular edit isn't all that difficult, but it would take more time to explain why than it's worth. —Rob (talk) 00:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. There should be a way inside the browse parameter to include a header row like that (in other words, without editing any templates). It might be worth playing in a sandbox. If it looks okay, I'd be down with it.

Keep in mind that I'm only one person though, and right now consensus is to put browsing on the bottom for multi-state routes (no matter how few "multi" is). -- NORTH ^talk 01:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think even that's necessary (explanation referred above follows, I ran a mile in the intervening time); the browse parameter isn't used for multiple-state 2di interstates, and it isn't used for any intrastate interstates. This leaves multistate 3di interstates, of which the entire set spans 2 states at most, except for I-275 right now and I-355 (possibly) in the future. So that's adding 2 rows 99.9% of the time, and 3 rows once. I'll try it out and see how it works... there's always the ability to revert. —Rob (talk) 01:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

↓

Of course, the fact I need a piece of paper and an object diagram to weed through the browse structure might mean this'll take some time... —Rob (talk) 01:57, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I put two browses in the infobox on Loop (Texarkana) a ways back with header rows. --Holderca1 02:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like problem solved to me. -- NORTH ^talk 04:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not a bad stylistic solution, but it's using two different ways to show the browse boxes; previous_road/previous_type/next_type/next_route, and browse. This is fine because it's the infobox for state highways of Texas, but for Interstates it's not going to work because we don't assign states to Interstate infoboxes.

However, it should theoretically be possible to manually force a row into the browse box. But for whatever reason (I'm still thinking about it) it doesn't work that way. —Rob (talk) 13:15, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Who says we don't have state browse boxes in interstate infoboxes? See Interstate 37. --Holderca1 16:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. That's got potential. It looks like it depends on creating something similar to {{Infobox TX State Highway/Interstatebrowse}} for the states affected by multistate 3dis... —Rob (talk) 21:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

All right, I made it work. For people who like blazing trails, see the Texas version, or the Illinois version under the Infobox Road template (only 49 states to go...) -- {{Infobox road/IL browse2}} and possibly associated templates {{Infobox road/IL list link}} and {{Infobox road/browse no route}}. On a related note, editing this thing so closely resembles spaghetti code it's not even funny. :-) —Rob (talk) 22:02, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorting categories at the Commons?

I've been playing with the different road categories at the Commons, and I think I may have a way to make them little more organized and presentable to people coming in from the new Commons links. How about sorting them so the shield comes first, then a map of the route, then all photos of the route sorted roughly west-east/south-north, then all other miscellaneous media after that? (See commons:Category:Interstate 76 (east) for an example.) This would make it easier for the viewer to get an idea of the sights along the route in order, and make it easier to determine where along the route a picture was taken. Krimpet 18:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I've got a separate question about moving images from here to Commons... How does one go about actually doing this? Is it enough to just upload a new version with a {{pd-username-en}} tag? Or do we have to actually transwiki the image pages here? -- NORTH ^talk 07:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it is pretty simple, just upload the image to the commons, then place {{nowcommons}} on the image here and that's it, an admin will make there way to the image here and delete it eventually. --Holderca1 15:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Our own peer review section?

I've noticed that enough articles coming out of this project and various subprojects are heading to peer review and/or GA noms.

However, the community-at-large seems to have some difficulty with some of these road articles (see this example) due to unfamiliarity with the subject.

Perhaps we could follow the example of so many other projects and have a peer review section of our own? We wouldn't be the first transportation-related project to do so (there's already one for rail). I've found peer reviews by people specializing in a subject, particularly one on which so many people are doing so much good work, to be more informed and helpful than ones that come from the community as a whole. Plus it would reduce the backlog on peer review a little bit.

Anyone else? Daniel Case 18:04, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm game with something like this. I'll create the page ASAP.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 18:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Page created at Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/Peer review, as this has to do with all highways/roads.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 22:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

This is probably a good idea, but it's probably important that we do some regular peer review as well. Otherwise, we'll think an article is perfect just because it meets all of our standards, only to have those standards questioned later on because they don't meet Wikipedia standards, like at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/California State Route 37. -- NORTH ^talk 23:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe a tiered process will work, where articles are sent first to the Highways peer review and then, once those issues have been addressed, to the normal peer review. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 23:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Excellent plan. -- NORTH ^talk 23:45, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

New archival bot

Due to the loss of Werdnabot, we are switching to User:MiszaBot II so that automatic archiving continues. Any projects still with Werdnabot code are encouraged to go to User:MiszaBot II and request archival. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 21:07, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Another question about the new maint parameter

Now that we've gotten all the kinks out, there's still one more question that's left unanswered. Just how much information are we planning on including there. For example, Interstate 78 in New Jersey is maintained by:

• DRJTBC for the westernmost 3 miles (more than just the bridge approach)
• NJDOT for most of the highway
• NJTA on the Newark Bay Extension
• PANYNJ on the Holland Tunnel approaches

How many of those should be included in the infobox? All of them? Just the DOT and the Turnpike Authority? The Bridge Commission, but not the Port Authority? -- NORTH ^talk 17:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Include all of them. See Interstate 476 for two, but generally it's the same idea.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 19:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've already included two on several other New Jersey routes; I was just checking whether all four of these were worthy of inclusion. -- NORTH ^talk 20:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion

I am about to nominate a few articles for deletion, just wanted to run it through here, maybe I am missing something, they look like surface streets in Plano, Texas and Dallas, Texas. Plano Parkway (Plano, Texas), Parker Road (Plano, Texas), Midway Road (Plano, Texas), Lovers Lane, Dallas, Texas, Knox Street, Dallas, Texas, Frankford Road, Dallas, Texas and Midway Road, Dallas, Texas. None of these are associated with any state or county highway, if they are, they fail to mention it. Are any of these worth keeping? I am a bit surprised they haven't found their way to AfD yet. --Holderca1 19:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Since there wasn't a response, I have nominated them all at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frankford Road, Dallas, Texas. --Holderca1 17:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

AFD for List of highways numbered 888

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of highways numbered 888. The list consists of three items that are all red links. People familiar with the roads might want to create reasonable stub articles to remove the red links. --Polaron | Talk 21:07, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Due to comments not related to the actual AFD nom and more in the direction of naming conventions, a meeting will be called on IRC. The date of this meeting has yet to be determined.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 23:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The meeting has been tentatively scheduled for this Friday at 9:30 PM EDT (6:30 PM PDT). An alternate date has been tentatively set for this Saturday at the same time. Please post here with any concerns or comments. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 05:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there a reason it has to be Friday or Saturday night? Nothing against Wikipedia or anything, but I rarely have it my weekend evening plans. Not to mention the NCAA tourney is on this weekend, so I won't make it to the meeting, I will discuss the issue on the wiki side. --Holderca1 13:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Most of us are busy the other nights. If enough people can't make it we could consider holding duplicate sessions. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:07, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

All the more reason to hold the main discussion on-wiki. -- NORTH ^talk 04:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

All the major discussions from now on will be held on IRC. You are always welcome to join. IRC supports Windows, Mac, and Linux. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

If we actually had time to devote to discussions, then I could care less where discussions are held. But we have more important issues to take care of, like a dozen inactive projects, countless stub articles that are a "random article" click away from AFD, etc., and any wiki time spent solely on discussions isn't fixing either of the two. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 04:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for my snide remark. This is certainly one the cases where an IRC discussion is fine. We've all weighed in at the AfD, and it's pretty clear that some sort of change is in order. If the "select few" want to discuss it on IRC to decide whether the naming convention is going to by Highways numbered X, Roads numbered X, or even 888 (highway) that was proposed recently, I couldn't care less.

But no, Rschen. All minor discussion can be held on IRC. All major discussion must be held on the wiki. That's what everyone save the three of you said on WT:USRD/IRC. -- NORTH ^talk 05:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see how it takes any more time to discuss here rather than IRC, the discussion itself may take longer, but it doesn't take any longer from an individuals viewpoint. It's not like you post a reply and then sit there refreshing the screen until someone replies, you go edit something else, check your watchlist from time to time, go back if there has been a change. --Holderca1 14:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

(indent reset) Some of us have lives outside of this. I can't see how any issue is so urgent that it would take too much time to debate it here over the span of a day or two. --Sable232 16:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

IRC and this project

Refactored to WT:USRD/IRC.

02:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Ridge Route

I have rewritten and expanded Ridge Route. Before I take it to peer review, can I have some advice and comments? Thank you. --NE2 22:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've taken it to Wikipedia:Peer review/Ridge Route/archive1. --NE2 02:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

States that don't have a subproject yet

The following is copied from User talk:Holderca1. The discussion started when it was proposed to create a Louisiana WikiProject, and I thought, since there's not demand for it yet, to create a single general state highway WikiProject for all the states that don't have them yet. I didn't mean for the discussion to take off quite yet, but it did, so I copied it here. -- NORTH ^talk 02:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Rather than creating a Louisiana WikiProject, I was thinking it might be a good idea to create a WikiProject for all the state highways that don't have their own. That way, we can standardize everything in the meantime while we wait for demand to increase for a separate wikiproject. I'll probably propose it on WT:USRD once I finish the LA shield images and the NJ infoboxes. -- NORTH ^talk 19:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Then what is USRD for? As stated on the project page, it explicitly states "To some extent, standardizing the state highway articles for which a WP does not exist yet." USRD already does just that. We do not need the new WikiProject. If you guys do propose it, be prepared to be shot down.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions} 02:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Then to what extent do we need any state WikiProject? How does WP:USRD provide any guidelines for creating state highway articles the way WP:NJSCR does? -- NORTH ^talk 02:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, state projects that are currently inactive shouldn't exist as standalone projects. USRD does provide a structure; however, it is through the subproject template and not the main project page. There's nothing stopping anyone from copying the structure from the template to the project page, though. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 02:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, to further explain, here is an excerpt from an IRC conversation:

TwinsMetsFan: since every project should follow the subproject template, why not make a structure on USRD and then reserve the state pages for tweaks to that structure?
vishwin60: dunno
vishwin60: every project is different
vishwin60: especially MD
TwinsMetsFan: that's why if we really want to have consistency, and shut the others up at the same time, we should put a skeleton up
TwinsMetsFan: and let states warp it however they want
TwinsMetsFan: within reason
vishwin60: good idea
vishwin60: that would emphasize the statement "To some extent, standardizing the state highway articles for which a WP does not exist yet."
TwinsMetsFan: exactly
TwinsMetsFan: USRD is no longer a shell parent - we need to emphasize that
vishwin60: true
TwinsMetsFan: we are on the verge of massive changes, and all that remains is for someone to budge or say something before i spring it on them
TwinsMetsFan: after all, imho, the line between "consensus" and "be bold" is becoming very blurry
vishwin60: oh yeah, from very recent discussions
TwinsMetsFan: right
TwinsMetsFan: between people who read policies like the Bible and others who want to discuss adding a period to the end of a sentence, consensus and being bold is not matching up
TwinsMetsFan: the policy freaks don't have consensus but they do it anyway
TwinsMetsFan: the discussion lovers inhibit boldness by demanding consensus
vishwin60: so then IAR could be invoked???
TwinsMetsFan: based on everything we presented in the newsletter last week, we're almost to that point
vishwin60: ignoring them?
TwinsMetsFan: no, something has to be done, and if it means ignoring all rules, then so be it
TwinsMetsFan: If the rules prevent you from improving or MAINTAINING Wikipedia, ignore them (emphasis mine)
vishwin60: that's definite and indefinite
TwinsMetsFan: right, but i think it applies in the USRD structure case
TwinsMetsFan: heh, to answer North's second question, may as well use the idea i presented up above
TwinsMetsFan: with the flexible structure
TwinsMetsFan: er, "flexible" structure

Hope that helps.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions} 02:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

If WP:USRD can serve as this proposed state highways project, I'm all for that. In it's current state, I don't see that, but it's certainly possible that we could tweak it so it could.

Essentially, yes, that Subproject Template would work, and should be moved somewhere more easily accessible so that (for ex.) Louisiana editors can easily find and refer to it, even though there's not a separate Louisiana WikiProject and guideline. If this is no longer just a shell parent, the project page should probably be cleaned up quite a bit, as this is the first I've heard of this. -- NORTH ^talk 02:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

There are differences between states and how their DOTs do things, so it makes sense to have variants in the "rules". --NE2 02:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Changes have been made as detailed above. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 21:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

IMHO USRD should have a basic structure, but should not hinder the creation of subprojects (as long as there are enough users of course. ) But let's discuss this tonight at meeting. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 21:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The project page looks good so far. -- NORTH ^talk 06:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

March 17 request to edit West Virginia's shield

I realize that your wikiproject has remained as authentic as possible in its use of state road shields; however, West Virginia's is so plain and uninteresting that it can often be confused with the shields of other states. Therefore, I propose substituting with File:WVtRouteTemplate2.jpg. As a West Virginian, I do prefer the design of the latter. Thanks for your consideration. Mphamilton 16:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Ummm, no... This is an encyclopedia... -- NORTH ^talk 19:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Disagreed. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 19:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Disagree --Mhking 03:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad shield though. If numbers look good in it, suggest it to (the DOT of) West Virginia. If they change theirs, we will too. --MPD ^{T / C} 05:06, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively, you should be able to use it on userpages and for the wikiproject symbol. —Rob (talk) 06:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, send it to WVDOH. Oklahoma changed their shield for the Centennial, perhaps you can find another reason that WVDOH might want to spend the money on new shields. Or, just send it to The Great International Highway Makeover so other roadgeeks can see it. —Scott5114↗ 07:44, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

In case anyone hasn't noticed, the "replacement" image above is neither centered nor a preferred image type. The edges of the shield are cut off and it is a JPEG, where the preferred non-vector format for this case would be PNG. Regardless, this shield is unencyclopedic and should not be used in article space. If you want to use it for your userpage, go ahead, but it does not belong in the WV stub template. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 17:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

How to create Nebraska shields

I looked at Wikimedia Commons and at least 2 Nebraska Highway Shields are missing, for NE 19 and NE 85. Any way to get them posted? DandyDan2007 00:06, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Done - Image:N-19.svg and Image:N-38.svg. • master_son^{Lets talk} 01:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless my eyes are playing tricks on me, that request was for NE 85, not NE 38???

Also, there appear to be some naming issues with the Nebraska shields. There already was a shield for N-19, but it's named Image:N-20.svg. Similarly, a shield for N-39F is called Image:N-35F.svg. To solve this, even though they won't be needed, can we get a N-20 and N-35F shield? (The N-39F shield probably needs to be re-uploaded under the proper title as well.) -- NORTH ^talk 03:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

39F is actually a shield for a recreational road, not a Nebraska state highway. It will need to be named something completely different to avoid confusion with the N-X convention for the state highways. --Holderca1 13:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Nebraska's state highways. Is there overlap between the numbering of "true" N-X routes and recreational roads? If not, then there wouldn't be any confusion. From what I can tell from the incomplete List of Nebraska numbered highways, there is no overlap, but I could be wrong. -- NORTH ^talk 03:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no overlap, although from what I can tell, neither 35F nor 39F exists... Odd... -- NORTH ^talk 03:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, never been to Nebraska, so wasn't sure. Although, I don't think we are the only ones. Some crazy shield making going on over there. --Holderca1 13:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'll head over there when I'm done with Louisiana... -- NORTH ^talk 23:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

List of highways numbered XXX

Is there any convention for the size of the shields for the three digit highways? For the roads in the United States anyway, the 2 digit highways are all 20px in size. However, the three digit highway disambiguation pages seem to be a mix of 20px and 25px, with the occasional image of a different size thrown in there. From Template:Infobox Maryland highway, a consensus of 25px for the 3 digit route shields has been reached in WP:MDSH, with the logic being that the larger shields needed for the 3 digit routes result in squished signs when viewed at 20px. For instance, consider the shield for Maryland Route 355. At 20px, it looks like this:, and at 25px, it looks like this: . Looking at a shield for I-270, we have at 20px and at 25px. This consensus has been around for awhile on the Maryland wikiproject, and I was wondering if any sort of consensus existed at the national level. As I mentioned, the Lists of highways numbered XXX seem to all have a different standard as to the size of these shields.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ravensfan5252 (talk • contribs)

20px for 2 digit and 25px for 3 digit. —Scott5114↗ 07:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I know I saw to use 20px somewhere. The infobox example uses 20px and implies that this should always be used but does not state this. But for the road section it says use 25x20px. Shields is silent on this. If we are going to change, I would suggest going with 25px since the 20px is too small on many screen and resolutions. Vegaswikian 07:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:USRD/INNA, 2-digit shields are 20px wide and 3-digit shields are 25px wide. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 11:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Concur, the idea is to have all the shields the same height (20px), the square shields are easy, 20px wide, the wider shields need to be 25 px wide in order to be 20px high. --Holderca1 13:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Right. As for shields that get placed in {{Infobox road}}... it appears to have gravitated to 70px/88px, but this is not uniform across all templates. (See Tri-State Tollway). —Rob (talk) 17:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

So for dab pages, we should use 20px and optionally for 3 digit shields 20px25px? Using this on the sample above we would get and not or . Or am I getting the parameters wrong? Vegaswikian 00:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

You don't need both values; only length, so it's [[Image:MD Route 355.svg|25px]]. Is that what you're asking? --MPD ^{T / C} 00:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I was asking. Thanks. Vegaswikian 03:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

AFD debate which may be of interest

There is a current AFD for Vermont Street, San Francisco. —Scott5114↗ 08:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

FAC for Ridge Route

I have nominated it at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ridge Route. --NE2 21:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Multiple project tags

From a discussion with TMF and myself on IRC:

TwinsMetsFan: you may also want to check out the CA talk pages you edited yesterday
TwinsMetsFan: a ton of editors readded the WP:CA tags
vishwin60: and it's not needed
TwinsMetsFan: tell them that
vishwin60: in fact, while they readded the WP CA tags, did they have an edit summary?
TwinsMetsFan: yeah
TwinsMetsFan: "Re-added WP:CAL tag; rated B, Low (please see talkpage discussion - co-existing tags are allowed on the related California projects"
TwinsMetsFan: also, this issue should be brought up at USRD
TwinsMetsFan: mutliple states use the SH tag for intrastate routes as well
vishwin60: ok, this will become WP:USRD policy...
vishwin60: only one project tag allowed on USRD talk pages
vishwin60: unless if it's HAR or something like that

Yeah, related. Sure, the article is within WP:CA scope, but it's more in WP:USRD scope, or in this case, WP:CASH scope. Also, the talk page looks messy as well when state tags are placed there. Furthermore, practically nobody from the state projects even edit the road articles. My proposal is to remove any state tags found on articles, regardless if they classify USRD projects as related. Sometimes, other USRD tags, like in Talk:Pennsylvania Route 39, are needed, as that article is in both WP:PASH and WP:HbgAR. Also, the regional tags would be kept as well, such as in Talk:Interstate 80 in California. Comments?  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 17:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what's going on here. Background on the problem? --Sable232 17:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see why this is within the scope of WP:CA. While I have mixed feelings about what I'm about to suggest, have we considered the approach taken by some projects like WP:AVIATION where they use a common banner that supports all of their children projects? Results in a larger banner, but fewer banners. In the case of a road, you would still have the issue of maybe two parents. However the suggested solution could solve that by designing our combined template to also support an appropriate state road project. That would still leave the state out, except for its being the parent of the state road project. While this could be a concern it could still be addressed in the combined template, however I don't believe that would be necessary. Vegaswikian 19:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is where it needs to be discussed, a USRD policy wouldn't prevent a state project from adding their tags anyway. Personally I don't think this is a big deal, we could always make our tags smaller. All Texas highways are tagged with Wikipedia:WikiProject Texas tags, but it in no way bothers me or hinders the articles. I see this as a non-issue. We have bigger problems then cluttered talk pages, especially since we can't direct other projects to remove their tags. The proper place to bring this up would be at the Wikipedia wide level. I agree with having the parent projects mentioned in the state highway projects, for example, the Texas Highway tag would have a line saying that the project is a subproject of WP:USRD and Wikipedia:WikiProject Texas. --Holderca1 19:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of making them smaller. --MPD ^{T / C} 19:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we could make them small by default, with a show/hide button to expand each one, like the "Article milestones" template? Krimpet (talk/review) 19:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I have added a mention of the parent projects on the Texas template, see an example here: Talk:Texas State Highway 151. It feeds into the state level cat as the separate template did. WP:Texas does not have a rating system at the moment, but for those states that do, you can just have it feed into their rating cats as well. I would get the buyoff from the state project before making the changes to get a consensus on the idea. --Holderca1 20:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose I agree with both sides on this issue. (*gasp*) For starters, I don't see how WP:USRD would have the authority to remove other projects' tags. If one project wants to tag an article, what gives another project the right to say, "No, this isn't in your scope." Secondly, the {{WikiProjectBanners}} template exists to condense multiple banners, and it's currently in use on Interstate 295 (Delaware-New Jersey).

That being said, there is a valid point behind the other projects' removal. To be honest, how much work does WikiProject Delaware do on maintaining the I-295 article?

Basically, I feel your pain, but I don't think it's worth the work to remove them. And even if it is, it's not a discussion we should be having here. -- NORTH ^talk 00:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Project page at 800x600.

Screenshot

This is what the USRD page looks like on an 800x600 display. Is there anything we can do about it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by WikiLeon (talk • contribs) 21:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC).

You might want to consider getting a newer/better video driver/monitor. In the prospect, no. It would look fine in 1024x768 or larger.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 21:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Whoa, yeah, may want to look at a different monitor, you can probably find a used one for pretty cheap. Heck, if you lived close by you could have this HP monitor that I have just sitting on the floor of my study. --Holderca1 21:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

people still use 800x600? • master_son^{Lets talk} 21:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like this is an issue with the browser or the template formats. Something is coded incorrectly to cause that overlap which I think is your concern. As others have pointed out, monitors are cheap. About 4 months ago I got a 19 inch wide screen Viewsonic for $150. The only problem is that now I need more memory and a faster processor! Vegaswikian 22:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

"Get a better monitor" isn't a valid defense. It can happen on any resolution if you make the windows small enough, which I occasionally do when I'm working on multiple things at once. That being said, I don't think it's a problem on us, as Vegaswikian mentioned. One possible fix I can think of though (that may or may not work) is to try to force the TOC below the center template. -- NORTH ^talk 00:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

That will not solve it - it will squish the main text to next to nothing in the middle. Curious - is there a really valid reason for the {{Project U.S. Roads}} templates to be on the project pages? I was under the impression they belonged on talk pages... • master_son^{Lets talk} 00:40, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

My monitor is 1440x900 and based on window size, you can still get the problem. Moving the TOC fixes this. Maybe there is some template coding that someone can do to fit all three items across the page and not overlap if you narrow down the size of the browser window or display resolution. Vegaswikian 00:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

here's the result in 800X600 (scrolled down to see the beginnings of the body text:

An editor has nominated the above file for discussion of its purpose and/or potential deletion. You are welcome to participate in the discussion and help reach a consensus.

---

An editor has nominated the above file for discussion of its purpose and/or potential deletion. You are welcome to participate in the discussion and help reach a consensus.

As you can see the body text is collapsed to nothing more than 1-2 inches across the page because of the two boxes (the {{Project U.S. Roads}} template and the TOC. Sure it fixes the overlap, but the size of both of the boxes causes a whole new problem... • master_son^{Lets talk} 00:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps either shifting the news template down, or moving it here (to the talk page)? -- NORTH ^talk 01:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I watched what happened as the window was narrowed and the results are interesting. At least with the TOC moved, all of the text is readable. Either the templates need some recoding if that will address the problem or the templates need to be moved for a better solution. Vegaswikian 01:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Do not move the news template down. It is there on the top so that people do not have to scroll down, and if it is moved down, it makes the page obnoxiously long. Also, if the news template did not have a special purpose of being there, it wouldn't be there at all. Subprojects such as WP:NYSR and WP:INSR currently use this format. They have been using that format for a very long time. That is the general consensus that I have been pointing out. For nuff's sake, at least maximize your window, since I'm on 1280x1024 and it's fine. It's the same with 1024x768.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 01:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, "I have a better monitor and it's fine on mine" isn't an excuse. Try it now. I moved the TOC to the right side, with the project news immediately below that. It's a bit of an awkward layout, but it solves the issue we're discussing here. -- NORTH ^talk 01:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, even with a "normal" monitor and my window maximized, the stuff at the top is fine, but the to-do list further down overlaps with the bottom of the news template. (On both the original version and my current version. Grr...) Leads me to believe that there's pretty much nothing we can do on our end to solve everything; it's a browser/raw code problem. -- NORTH ^talk 01:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit conflict] It looks good, but the change made the table awkwardly big (might need to click go a few times). For the sake of consistency with subprojects (WP:NYSR and WP:INSR taken as an example), the TOC on the left, table in the center, and Project news on the right looked fine. And yes, you're right, it is a browser/raw code and/or video driver/monitor limitations.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 02:07, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the current version looks fine from a visual point of view. As page designer, one objective is to design the page so that it works on the lowest reasonable resolution that is likely to be around. On the other hand, you need to allow for features and function you can get on better monitors. The design issue becomes one of where the balance lies. If you can make it work on all screens, even if it looks like garbage on the lower resolution screens then, in my opinion, the solution is workable. Text that overlaps is simply wrong. Vegaswikian 03:33, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's possible to fix this, we should change it here and on the subprojects. Just because the subprojects do it that way isn't a reason to keep it that way here.

Note to Vegaswikian: watch your edit conflicts. -- NORTH ^talk 03:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I did not get an error when I saved. Maybe a wiki bug??? Sorry if I wiped out your comment, but it was not intentional. Vegaswikian 03:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

According to our IRC discussion:

TwinsMetsFan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_U.S._Roads#Project_page_at_800x600. - i am not changing the table on NYSR
vishwin60: yeah, neither on WP:PASH nor INSR

So, we also have users that oppose changing the tables on subprojects. That includes TMF, Rschen, and myself.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 03:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, consensus doesn't override everything. People need to be able to read the pages. -- NORTH ^talk 03:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't matter. As Rschen said:

rschen7754: if people are super behind on technology thats their problew

This is the same principle with EOL for Windows 98/ME with Microsoft.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 03:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, we can't become too adaptable. We can't adapt the pages to look excellent on Lynx. Pretty much every computer that is capable of running Windows ME, XP, 2000, Vista, or Mac OS X is capable of supporting higher than 800 by 600. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC) (ec)

I don't see any computer out there supporting anything less than 1024X768 these days. Right now I have that resolution (the rest is covered by Trillian) and the subproject pages I can view just fine. I will say the same for the US Roads page as well - before the change Also the changes push the News template over the To-Do template, and the ToDo template is not changeable so it looks ugly irregardless. Thus I join those 'opposing' this change. -- master_son^{Talk - Edits} 04:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I use everything from Firefox to IE to (rarely) Safari to edit Wikipedia. Firefox shifts the to-do list to the left instead of keeping it in the center. Thus in Firefox there's a tiny bit of overlap in the new version and none in the old list. IE shifts the to-do list below the news bar. Safari has overlap in both versions. So yes, there's no clean way to resolve this. I agree with Vegaswikian – we need to eliminate the text overlap above all else.

I posted a question on the Village Pump asking what the "minimum system requirements" for Wikipedia are. I could have sworn I read 800x600 somewhere, but can't find it at the moment.

Feel free to revert my TOC-on-the-right version, as I put in my edit summary. I agree that it's probably not the best solution out there, just a solution. -- NORTH ^talk 04:26, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't replicate any of those problems with the browsers. Maybe the resolution is what is doing it, but even on my 1024*768 IE 7 laptop it looks good

Safari looks all right as well: (although it is a large screen):

--Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, now we're arguing over whether or not the problem exists in the first place? Of course it doesn't replicate on a larger screen... Try resizing the window so it's about half the width. -- NORTH ^talk 05:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Jumping in a little late, but since the vast majority of the browsing world uses 1024x768 or larger (only 12% use 800x600[3]) I wouldn't really concentrate on this too much. A good solution, if you want to keep at it, would be to allow every element to be collapsible. —Rob (talk) 18:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I put the TOC inside the table, and made the bulk of it hide-show.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 23:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I like it, thanks. Good work. --Sable232 23:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

It still doesn't fix the underlying problem. --Holderca1 00:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Then what implication does this have?  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 00:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

My question on Village Pump didn't get much feedback, although it seems they'd prefer (but not require) that we support 800x600. I personally don't care anymore, although I don't like the current version, as I'd like the TOC to be visible. -- NORTH ^talk 02:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I only made it this way so that a comprimise can be reached. As discussed on the IRC channel, if the current configuration can quiet this discussion down, we're all for it. Feel free to revert, as always.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 15:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I came late to the VP, but here are my 2p. In my monobook.css I set the width of the main body column (#content) to 7in. At 96dpi that's 672 pixels wide. I run at 1600x1000px, and I would never let my browser take up that much room. Moral: you cannot safely assume that users will allow your page to be arbitrarily wide, even if they have perfectly modern equipment. CMummert · talk 17:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Inkscape/GIMP USRD palette available

I have made a USRD-related color palette available on my personal website. (Commons won't let me upload it.) You can download it at http://www.denexa.com/roadgeek/usrd.gpl . This palette includes the MTF-specified map legend colors, as well as the six MUTCD colors.

To install in Inkscape, save the .gpl file to the the "palettes" subfolder in Inkscape's folder. (On Ubuntu, this is /usr/share/inkscape/palettes.) You will then be able to pick "USRD" from the list of palettes, accessed by clicking the arrow on the right side of the palette ribbon. In GIMP, save the file to the "palettes" subfolder in GIMP's folder. (On Ubuntu, /usr/share/gimp/2.0/palettes.) You can then open the palettes dialog (Ctrl+P) and double-click "USRD" to open the palette.

Let me know what you think, if you have any other colors you think I should include, and also if you find any errors. —Scott5114↗ 07:41, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

On Windows, this is C:\Program Files\Inkscape\share\palettes\. —Scott5114↗ 14:41, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

excellent work man! -- master_son^{Talk - Edits} 15:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

List of highways numbered 100

Is there any reason as to why the highways listed in List of highways numbered 100 are different than those listed in any of the other disambiguation pages? This diambiguation page has a table, whereas the others simply have lists. In my opinion, this page seems cleaner than the standard format of these articles, such as List of highways numbered 66, but it seems odd that only route 100 has the table. Jason Smith 08:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure, must be someone trying something out. To perhaps make it even more clean, I've removed the wikitable class, leaving the table "invisible" -- look better or worse to you guys?—Scott5114↗ 09:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Since these are mainly dab pages, I consider this to be a style issue. The simple list is what is used on all dab pages and I think it is all we need here. Why add the overhead, coding and processing, to have a table when a simple list does the job? Vegaswikian 16:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I concur, how about we get all of these created, all the redirects created prior to messing around with the style. --Holderca1 18:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Fixing one is not a lot of work. Fixes many after that one is copied to other pages, is more work. If the consensus is to follow the others as the guideline, then this one should be changed. If consensus changes, it will be easy to revert the changes back to the table. Vegaswikian 18:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

We just 10 pages that look like this: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Redirects/National/000-099, not to mention that the majority of those are incomplete. I just think that this part of the dab pages is a more pressing need. --Holderca1 19:18, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Three notes from me:

• Per a discussion on WT:USSH, redirects should not be used on dab pages.
• The simple, unformatted bulleted list looks better IMHO.
• We should either make the shields a uniform height or ditch the shields altogether. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 23:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone said to put redirects on the dab pages. --Holderca1 01:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

"...all the redirects created prior to messing around with the style." Unless I missed something, I don't understand what redirects this comment refers to. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 02:27, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I assume he means all the "Highway X" and "Route X" redirects. --Sable232 02:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

That is exactly what I meant, the redirects found on the link that I included above. --Holderca1 02:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we need to either create shields for every route on a dab page, or just get rid of them. But I think the full name is fine. --MPD ^{T / C} 02:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good, but we have some international routes that don't have shields, do we want to worry about those at the moment since it doesn't even fall under this project or just clean up the US sections? --Holderca1 10:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Good question. Since it's split up into countries, right now I'd say just US. To have shield after shield then suddenly no shield followed by shield after shield doesn't look good. So...we need to work on shielding those routes. The list of 100s, it seems to be only Texas' shields that are missing, list of 66s is missing many, but all the international routes have shields (at least). --MPD ^{T / C} 17:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I started working on that last night. I'll keep going as I have time. --Sable232 18:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I also know that some routes are missing from the list entirely, I will put this on my todo list. --Holderca1 22:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, as I was looking through some of these, redirects do exist on some of them, for example List of highways numbered 1, the Maryland link redirects to US 1. Should we remove the MD route? --Holderca1 16:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

What exactly was Maryland Route 1? Was it a historical road? Was it simply co-named with US 1? Vegaswikian 19:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

U.S. Route 1 in Maryland#History...  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 19:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

So the link should be to US1 in Maryland, as it is now, however should it be to the main article or the history section? No need to reply, just change it if needed. Vegaswikian 19:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Volusia County Road 4164 --NE2 03:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I wish that it hadn't been withdrawn. At some point we have to reach a consensus on whether county highways have the same notability that state highways do. -- NORTH ^talk 02:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It depends. Some places, county roads are really important. I don't think we have any notability guidelines on the issue, either. —Rob (talk) 12:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it will vary by state I think, for the most part, the county roads in Texas are not very notable, if they are even paved. :) --Holderca1 13:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

After giving it a couple seconds more thought, notability should be decided by each state wikiproject. Each state may have to go through each county on a per-county basis. I know Kane County county highways are so unimportant as to not even receive a mention in Wikipedia, whereas at least DuPage County has a list. —Rob (talk) 15:51, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, but the state projects don't have much autonomy as of late. For example, what is the difference between the Kentucky WP and the Kentucky task force, not much that I can see. --Holderca1 16:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

This will need to be considered at a more local level. In NY, the county roads tend to be the main ones that have reasonably high traffic with only 2 lanes. But does that make them notable? Here in Nevada we have CC-215 that will be a 10 lane road, quite notable. So there can not be a blanket notability statement. Maybe a simple expansion of the guideline would work? Vegaswikian 18:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that a seperate article would be needed in that example, Clark County 215 should redirect (as it does) to Interstate 215 (Nevada), not have a seperate article. --Holderca1 19:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I saw no point in listing Wisconsin's county highways - I just created a blanket article to cover it. They're all essentially back roads as it is. An article about the history of the highways (as a whole) to me is suffice enough. -- master_son^{Talk - Edits} 16:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Check for 404s on your pages

I just ran across Wikipedia:Dead external links. You might want to page through there and look for articles from your states. —Scott5114↗ 20:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

A few comments

First whoever had the bright idea of using the IRC to put some states over others needs to have thier head examined. I spent several days waiting for responses and caused me to lose interest in doing work in my own state road project. I do not care to be part of the full US road project since guess what I live in Michigan and dont travel outside of the state so I see no need to be part of larger group at this time. I read all of the comments and not only did they make assumtions with states they totally missed the ball on others they promoted over other states. Frankly I find this unwiki like attitude of a few over the hundreds that are working on this project. Most people that share input on the roads do not pay attention to the project pages unless thier is a new formatting change and will address the change then. Its not fair to all of a sudden say the way this state and this state was doing things is wrong and not have a discussion on it.

Another issue I am having is people put comments for clean up without doing any further explanation on the talk page. I am going to stress this now if people put clean up tags on a section put a comment on the talk page to say exactly what is wrong with the section. Just a generic tag is pointless as it will get ignored and not fixed if anything I may just delete the tag if I see nothing wrong. --Mihsfbstadium 12:42, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as the cleanup tag, what needs attention should be mentioned on the tag itself. See the cleanup tag on Texas State Highway 74, the last line states what needs to be cleaned up. If the individual tagging the article does not mention in the tag or the talk page what needs cleaning up, by all means remove it if you don't see any glaring problems. It's not your responsiblity to figure out what the other person was thinking. --Holderca1 12:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that you fully understand what is going on. Please do not make personal attacks against other users, furthermore. IRC is used to collaborate nationwide. All editors at USRD and subprojects are welcome to join. However, you are not required to join, but you will not be able to give input on some discussions. How is this an unwikilike attitude? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

As the resident anti-IRC person, I feel the need to point out that "you will not be able to give input on some discussions" is how it's an unwikilike attitude. However, the status page is the sort of behind-the-scenes collaboration that is perfect for discussion on IRC. As someone said on the talk page there, no changes are being implemented directly as a result of the status page, it's just a guide so that we can see where work needs to be done. Consensus isn't required to put up a status page; now that it's up we can discuss it and tweak the rating system and the like. -- NORTH ^talk 02:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

North I would agree with you on that but I already changed the Status of Michigan twice. Its not in need of dire help. To give an example, Indiana needs a ton more attention than Michigan does. And guess what it is not bolded at all. Thats what bothers me more than anything else. As for the IRC channel if you can find in the Wiki site that is how we are to coloberate and not on the talk pages then feel free to provide that to me. I prefer to use the talk pages since we all use diffrent work schedules. Its quite unwiki to say if you want to input you have to use IRC at a certian time and date when most of use this as a hobby and nothing more. And just an arbitury not compliant phrase for what needs work is quite stupid IMHO. The reason for the tag is that something is not compliant. So why list it twice is my feeling. I am just saying right now that I would prefer people to use the tags with info other than non compliance since its saying the same thing twice. --Mihsfbstadium 06:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Highways

Can anyone tell me the point of this page other than it listing out all the Wikiprojects? It hasn't been update by a bot since November and to be honest I have never found it useful. Where does the bot pull its information? I know we have a lot more than 10 articles needing cleanup (technically only 1 of those listed under cleanup even falls under this project), etc... If someone finds it useful or thinks it can be fixed to make it useful, by all means lets keep it, but personally I think it just clutters up the project pages. --Holderca1 16:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

110% agreed. -- NORTH ^talk 16:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

As I've cleaned up project pages, I've been removing it, so no argument here. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 16:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah remove it. I don't get why it's there... --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 01:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Pages_needing_attention/Highways

I placed it up for MfD. No senese in keeping it if we find it useless. --myselfalso 21:20, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

March 16 meeting recap

Here's a quick overview of the topics discussed during the March 16 IRC meeting.

• Consensus advocated status quo on the disambiguation page naming convention.
• The proposal to demote inactive/struggling WikiProjects to task forces of USRD was introduced and unanimously supported. Kentucky and Utah will be demoted to task forces, with another three projects at risk of being downgraded as well. Projects that are demoted can be re-promoted at a later date if the state of the project improves. See WP:USRD/SUB.
• The Illinois routebox was converted to use Infobox road. The browsing for some infoboxes now needs repairing.
• Recent changes to the USRD project page were supported.

For the complete log, see Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Internet Relay Chat/Logs/2007-03-16. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 07:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Why were none of the proposals from the AfD for List of highways brought up during the meeting? The only options mentioned were Route X, Highway X, etc... which were all stated as not viable options during the AfD. I still stand firm that the word list needs to be taken out, they aren't lists, they are dab pages. I still don't understand how "Highways numbered X" doesn't work, it was never addressed in the meeting. --Holderca1 07:56, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, there was talk about the Texas highways and grouping them, but I was having trouble following the conversation. First off, What is INNA?? I would be glad to address the problem if I knew what the problem was. --Holderca1 08:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The reason no other proposals were brought up was because there was a great deal of support for the current naming convention ("List of highways numbered X"). INNA is the Infoboxes and Navigation task force, which sets standards for infoboxes and browsing across USRD. The portion directly related to the Texas discussion last night is Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Infoboxes and Navigation/Navigation#Precedence, which sets guidelines for the browsing order. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 15:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem with Texas browsing is that it treats Interstate and U.S. highways as entirely separate things. Ideally, the browsing on Texas State Highway 9 would go from SH 8 to IH 10, the browsing on Interstate 10 in Texas would go from SH 9 to SH 10, and the browsing on Texas State Highway 10 would go from IH 10 to SH 11.

I think all the Loops, spurs, Farm to Market roads, etc. should stay as is, though. -- NORTH ^talk 19:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed 100% on both points. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 19:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

But Interstates and U.S. Highways are entirely seperate things, we do have two seperate projects for them after all. It just seemed the most logical to seperate them. How does one browse just the interstates of Texas? It doesn't make any sense to me to combine them all, can you point me to the discussion on the topic? --Holderca1 00:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's been the status quo for a long time, they need to be combined, ever since the days of WP:CASH in 2005. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 00:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

So regardless if it makes any sense, just because it was done that way by California it should be done every where else? Sorry, but WP:TXSH does not fall under WP:CASH. Also, California doesn't have duplicates, in Texas, you can have a state highway and an interstate with the same number. I will buy off on combining Interstate and U.S. Highways, but State Highways will remain seperate. --Holderca1 02:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

There are other states, like Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New York that duplicate routes as well. Under INNA, they will be combined, and that policy is not to be changed unless a suttle discussion is enacted. Projects under USRD follow policies, and TXSH is no exception.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 02:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

INNA has only existed 2 months, TXSH has been doing their browse this way for much longer. Until someone directs me to a loction where this has been discussed at, then TXSH will continue to browse this way. You can't make up a guideline without a discussion, show me the discussion. --Holderca1 03:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

First of all, you do not have the authority to arbitrarily declare that TX will not follow the guidelines set in INNA. Furthermore, you can look up the discussion yourself. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not touching this with a ten and half foot pole, only to say that it got inappropriately ugly really quickly. -- NORTH ^talk 03:57, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The main thing is, Holderca1, you work it out with INNA. You don't just declare that your project will no longer be subject to WP:USRD. Last I heard, Texas roads were U.S. roads. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Just so you know, my comment was directed more towards you, Rschen, than Holderca. The "discussion" here doesn't really scream consensus to me, despite what the section header says. Thus, I think Texas should be allowed to keep its browsing system until there's a clear consensus to apply INNA unilaterally on all the states.

I think there is some justification to doing things the INNA way in states like New Jersey and California that go out of their way to not assign the same number to two classes of highways, and to doing things the "Texas" way for states that do. -- NORTH ^talk 06:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

See, this was the rationale behind the now-no-longer-in-existence Illinois Route Box... it's a list of Illinois Routes, not Every Route In Illinois. If it was another route (and in this case, I did lump together U.S. Routes and Interstate Routes), that's what See also was for. In case you managed to get U.S. 24 and I-24 confused or something silly. —Rob (talk) 04:58, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

IL is somewhat odd there, since US and I routes are allowed to be in the same state. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I am just failing to see the point of having separate subprojects if everything has to follow what US Roads says to the letter. And no, not all Texas roads are US Roads, they are roads that are in the US, but they are not US Roads. If you are wondering why the number of contributors for this project is suffering, here is where you need to look. Rschen, neither you, nor anyone else owns this wikiproject, and telling someone they don’t have the “authority” to do something is not going to get people to rush back to help. Also, see your comment here: [4], “actually, if CA even decides to follow the ELG.” So, let me get this straight, everything here is optional for CA, but mandatory for everyone else? I had always thought that separate wikiprojects existed because every state’s highway system is different, with this being a perfect example. It makes sense for CA to browse this way, because CA treats interstate, U.S., and state highways the same and this is indicated by the way they number their highways. Texas doesn’t do it this way, this from the TXDOT web site:

State Highway System (SHS) The highways in the state built and maintained by TxDOT.
Each category of highways is its own system within the State Highway System, i.e.
Farm to Market Road system, State Highway Loop system, etc. [5]

Getting back to my issues with this project as a whole, I think we need to change how we go about getting a consensus on things around here. One editor saying, "this looks good to me" and another saying "yeah, me too" is not a discussion, nor is it consensus. We should do it by state, a consensus (say 2/3) of the active state wikiprojects is required to pass a guideline, policy, etc… This will prevent a mass of editors from a particular state and influencing the overall project. This project has been broken for a long while, even before SRNC, and if it is the hope to get the support back up, then changes need to be made on how this project is ran. --Holderca1 09:56, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I see your point, but considering the current state of U.S. Roads as a whole (which is not good), sometimes "be bold" has to trump "consensus". As for Texas being excluded from INNA...Washington is somewhat excluded since the SR numbering is derivative (SR 102 coming from US 101 and such), so it's not as if there can't be exceptions. Even so, their "derivative" browsing (that is, the browsing of the base routes) follows INNA as far as I've seen.

Ample time was given to discuss everything that has been included as part of INNA. The existence of the page was not made a secret; in fact, it was well advertised, both in the newsletter and on this page. Since no one commented against INNA, they were made guidelines through silence equals consent. The place to discuss exemption would be at WT:USRD/INNA. I'm willing to listen, but the bottom line is that some standard has to be in place to fall back on. The same applies for the new structure on the USRD page. Why is it necessary? Simple; so people don't start WikiProjects with no support simply to establish a standard. Too many people have done that already and the result is that there are inactive projects with no editors. Most of the Canada road WPs have been declared inactive; two of ours have become task forces and three more are on their way there.

The point of separate, state-level subprojects is to increase collaboration among editors with a similar focus, that being editing state highways in that state. These editors may also discover a flaw in the USRD structure, and can modify their structure to match. Bottom line, I'm not against WikiProjects for every state - I'm against WikiProjects that will have no support and no dedicated editors.

The discussion that occurred above could have been done a bit more civil; that I admit. But the reality is that tensions are going to run high here right now because of the sorry state of USRD collectively. The reason standards are being established on the USRD level is primarily for the states that have no WikiProject and have no hope of getting one anytime soon. Yes, these standards do apply to the subprojects that exist and are already well-established, but we can be more lenient in that department.

Holderca1, your contributions to Wikipedia are far too important to quit over something like this. My suggestion would be to bring the browsing issue up at WT:USRD/INNA and we'll take care of it there. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 16:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yay, politics. This is why I hardly even do anything on here anymore. Too many people are trying to create too much control over projects that they assert they have jurisdiction over. It's all a bunch of crap. And as far as the demotion period, that's just stupid. MISH just finished creating articles for all the state highways a month or two ago, so of course a bunch of them are stubs. They'll get worked on eventually, but the gavel wielding and contract manifestations just make it more of a hostile environment in which to work. I think to the detriment of Wikipedia as a whole, not just the roads project. Stratosphere ^{(U T)} 16:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

To compare the projects that were demoted to MISH is giving too much credit to the demoted projects. Kentucky and Utah have seen no activity in months, they no longer have any active editors, and key issues (such as the existence of three infoboxes for Kentucky) have been ignored. The reason they were demoted was that at the current rate, they won't be worked on eventually.

It is not necessarily a demotion "period" - if active editors are not found after the generic to-do list (found at WP:USRD/TD) is completed by this project, then it will remain a task force for the foreseeable future, as there'd be no point in making it a non-supported (by editors) WikiProject again. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 17:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

That may be, but when I make edits anymore I don't even think about the U.S. Roads project. I'm here to contribute useful information to articles, not wade through wikiprojects to find pages that list standards for every freaking thing we can nitpick about. The politics is getting thick and the reason I starred myself on the active contributors list is because I want to get the newsletter in case another deletion issue comes up that needs shutting down. I understand the need for consistency and standards across certain subjects, but reading the discussion and some other comments, widespread imposition of "consensus by silence" is the wrong way to do it. I agree with a poster above that while the state highway projects are subsets of the USRD project, the sub projects were created to deal with the nuances that deviate from the prevailing national standard. Either way, I'll leave you guys to writing the "standards" and I'll stick to contributing to articles whenever I see fit. Stratosphere ^{(U T)} 18:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll also point out that my counterargument to your "consensus by silence" is the second section on that very same page. The fact that issues are being arisen here, now, indicates that there probably wasn't genuine consensus to begin with. Stratosphere ^{(U T)} 18:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll start off by apologizing, I may have failed to keep my cool, but it wasn't this isolated instance that set me off, it has been brewing for several weeks. IMHO posting on this talk page about a guideline is not enough, it needs to be posted on all the subproject subpages as well, not everyone involved in the subprojects monitors this talk page, nor are they members of this project. At least during the SRNC, every project was notified and every individual was notified via talk pages. Also, on another issue, why is the juction table recently placed on the project page drastically different than what we discussed at ELG? I understand the difference in the two, but the appearance of the two should basically be the same, just without the exit column. I just don't understand why we need to nitpick every little thing, it just makes it more difficult to keep everything within those standards. I have always believed that if it isn't broken, don't try to fix it. --Holderca1 19:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It took three long hours to post to everyone's page (and taht was before we had more people joining). It is simply not practical to do that again. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 21:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

INNA was also mentioned prominently in the newsletter, but I see your point. Then again, I wasn't aware that any state used a different browsing system until recently. I'm not following you on the junction table...the design of it is the same as the ELG but without the exit column.

In terms of the last comment, sure, the Texas WP isn't broken, the New York WP isn't broken, the Michigan WP isn't broken, but there are plenty of WPs that are. Those are the projects that these standards are aimed at. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 19:43, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

See the Indiana State Road 2 article under the Road(s) column, the street names are listed below the numbered route rather than all on the same line, also, I can't remember what we said on colors, but I thought we said no colors. --Holderca1 20:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The junction table predates the ELG in both the color department and the display of roads. The table began as a junction list contained within Template:Routeboxny, with colors derived from Template:Routeboxny/legend. When the decision was made to go to infobox road, the junctions were moved to their own table, designed in a way that no information would be lost. After some discussion (somewhere in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York State routes/Archive 1), it was decided to convert the table into a template. This template then spread to numerous other states and, by request of another editor, I redesigned the template to look similar to the-then fledgling ELG. This is the only reason why the two seem similar, as the junction table was not based on the ELG, nor was the ELG based on the table. For this reason, the items discussed in the ELG discussion have no bearing on the junction table, a point that was agreed to during the ELG discussion. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 21:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I was meaning to reply to this awhile back, but others things popped up. Just want a bit of clarification, using the juction table is not a mandatory thing right? If a state wants to use the ELG format for their junction lists that is perferectly acceptable, correct? --Holderca1 13:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I have advocated against colors for a long time, mostly after I figured out what sort of an accessibility problem it poses. Also, I discourage forcing readers to refer to legends, similar to maps created in the Maps Task Force. —Rob (talk) 21:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Getting everyone on the same page

Let's put the actual issue aside for a while and focus on the basics.

• Firstly (and yes that's a word :)) I apologize if I was uncivil or a bit harried above.
• Secondly, there are simply too many editors and too many projects to keep notifying them of every little change that happens at USRD. Too many of them are inactive too, so it's not worth notifying everyone. That's why we created the Template:Project U.S. Roads and the newsletter. Thus, it needs to be your responsibility to participate in discussions and to remain aware. It's just like in high school, teachers have too many students and can't pressure each one about missing assignments, right? It's the student's responsibility to do their work. If you're not aware of discussions that you want to be a part of, then there's nothing we can't do (we can't read your mind and know that you wanted to be a part of that discussion...) I personally believe that we have thus gone above and beyond the call of a WikiProject to keep their members informed (as most projects, to my knowledge, do not have that many mechanisms of keeping their members informed). Another tool you have is your watchlist- a main page you should have on your watchlist is this one. If nothing else, this one. This is where it happens. Even furthermore, we have our own IRC channel. This is one of two that do (the other is hurricanes, I believe). Thus, we can collaborate in real time. Those that are against it, I would advise you to try it out before you simply reject it. On a personal level, I did not want to join IRC. However, after joining it, I would never go back. You never quite get the full picture of things on Wiki.
• Thirdly, WP:USRD is not a shell project anymore. Sure, I created it as one. However, that is no longer the case. WP:USRD is the head of the U.S. Roads area, and it was also founded before about 75% of the other highway projects (only IH, USH, CASH, CACR, WASH, and KYSH predate this, if I remember correctly). However, even those projects need to follow these guidelines decided here for uniformity across teh board.
• Fourthly, when you have a concern about a policy or guideline, you don't refuse to follow it. You work to change it. For example, you don't just send to WP:MFD the policy WP:3RR just because you disagree with it. You go to the talk page of WP:3RR and work to have it changed. Furthermore, you don't constantly complain about 3RR, for that gets nothing done. You work to change it and cooperate with other people.
• Fifthly, there are no leaders at a highway project. We should never have allowed that from the start. It's just like how administrators have no special privileges in the determination of consensus. I'm strongly considering removing every occurrence of "leader" from every road project... because that is misleading. There are no official "leaders". But then how do you lead? You lead by doing work. You lead by putting in the work and by participating in the consensus discussions. "Leaders" don't get special privileges in discussions. "Leaders" cannot and do not arbitrarily decide to rebel (with or without their project) against a policy just because they do not like it.
• Sixthly, the turnout at the IRC meeting Friday was downright shameful. We got 8 editors, and I commend them for that. However, we have over 100 editors. Assuming there are 100, that means that 8% of them participated. And considering that at least 5% more were complaining about the project's use of IRC and blatantly refusing to join in on the discussions (and then later complaining about not having any say in important issues), that is downright shameful.
• Seventhly, whether you realize it or not, WP:USRD is in deep trouble. Did anyone actually notice the AFD's? We barely squeaked by on a few of those. The whole project is simply in a state of trash right now. Yes, a state of trash. 22 projects out of the 37 that we have are in poor shape. That is over 50%. We have only 1 FA out of over 10000 articles. That is extremely sad. If this doesn't alarm you, then quite frankly, you should not be a roads editor.
• I'll start with that for now. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• And we're going to combine IH and USH and put them in as part of USRD, right? —Rob (talk) 21:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know at this point... but I think that we need to get everyone on the same team before we discuss something that fundamental. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 21:06, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
• Now's not the time to discuss that. We have more important issues to settle first. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 21:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

IRC should never be used to make decisions. Either discuss it on-wiki or don't discuss it at all and edit war over it, but don't discuss it on IRC and then claim there's consensus. --SPUI (T - C) 21:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC) This message is brought to you by the leaders of #wikipedia-en-roads-us, who know that no one listens to SPUI, and hope you will be turned to their side.

Holy crap... that's something I never thought I'd see. I'm not sure whether to be amused or frightened. -- NORTH ^talk 21:56, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow, we have an SPUI sighting. I wouldn't mind seeing some of our editors of the past all coming back, perhaps we can reach out to those that are still active on Wiki and see exactly why they left the project and what needs to be done to see them return. My statements where I states that Texas articles wouldn't follow was in response to the statement that they needed to change and that it wasn't open for discussion. I think there needs to be some flexiblity in all of our guidelines, do they really need to hard and fast rules? It's been a few years since high school, but a teacher can't expect the students to do an assignment if they don't know about it. As far as IRC goes, I tend to real life before I tend to anything on here. My evenings are dedicated to my family. I come on here when I have the chance, but trying to be here at a specific time is extremely difficult, and even if I can make it, the change that I can stay on for an extended period of time is unlikely. --Holderca1 22:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that's so unbelievable. Only 8% of editors have the time to drop everything and sit in a chat room to discuss this stuff. And I thought the bullshit over at the auto project was bad. --Sable232 22:06, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

That comment is simply not acceptable. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Here are my thoughts, in no particular order.

• I somewhat agree with Rschen that there's no need to announce every little change on individual users' talk pages. That's what a watchlist is for. That being said, every little change should be announced here at WT:USRD. These two comments [6] [7] don't really make the cut. There's nothing there implying that Texas (and potentially other states) will have to change their standards. When I saw those, I just assumed they were trying to implement what was already decided (i.e. not changing anything), and to help out with browsing on states that don't already have it in place (which Texas did/does).
• I'm glad that WP:USRD is not a shell project anymore, and it's more than capable of doing the job of the "other state highways" WikiProject I proposed. But just because the shell you created two years ago predates most of the state WPs doesn't mean that it's automatically the end-all-be-all. The active state WPs (i.e. Texas) do predate the non-shell-ness of USRD.
• I agree wholeheartedly that there are no leaders.
• Please shut up about IRC already. You had a productive meeting. Some of us chose to participate; some of us decided that we spend enough time on Wikipedia without spending time on IRC as well.
• WP:USRD is not trash, although it will benefit greatly from the reorganization. The reason we have so few FAs is simply because of the sheer volume of the articles involved. There simply aren't that many third-party sources we can rely on – especially for minor state routes – the way a hurricane WikiProject does, even for the weakest of hurricanes. Other than our tendency to randomly dive at each other's throats, we do a more than capable job at managing our work.

-- NORTH ^talk 23:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

About your IRC point, we all understand and even have the same opinion with your comment. However, there are some things in life you do not want to do, such as participate on IRC, but you have to do it when you want to get more out of what you were doing. People such as Rschen, TMF, Scott, Polaron, and myself had reasons to go on IRC and discuss what we did. Even MPD tried numerous times to connect to IRC, but failed because of his network. I believe that just trying to go the extra step (going on IRC in this case) is rewarding, and that you and others complaining about IRC aren't understanding the true state of USRD being inactive and destroyed. (No offense, NORTH, but that last sentence was directed at you for mostly doing work on NJSCR and other good projects) Also, please stay civil and cool; it's apparent that you aren't even thinking about those two while you were making the above statements.  V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · VRoads} 00:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:USRD is not trash, but it is not being maintained, that is my allegation. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

"Please shut up about IRC already. You had a productive meeting. Some of us chose to participate; some of us decided that we spend enough time on Wikipedia without spending time on IRC as well." As editors, we have to respect your decision; however, then do not complain when we have important discussions on IRC that affect the project. And you say this with never having been on IRC... --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll be the first to admit that I failed to stay cool, but only on my statement about IRC, because I'm tired of discussing it. To be explicitly clear, I'm glad you had a productive meeting there. I'm just reiterating that I won't be participating because I don't have time to, and don't call the 8% dreadful. It's about what I expected, especially since most of the 100 figure you cite are inactive editors. I never complained about this IRC discussion; my negative comments towards IRC were all based on attempting to change guidelines without achieving true consensus. This IRC discusssion did exactly what it was supposed to do: implement necessary reorganization to the project (but no actual changes when you think about it), and provoke healthy discussion here.

Rschen, your allegation was, and I quote, "The whole project is simply in a state of trash right now. Yes, a state of trash." And Vishwin is right, my view is somewhat jaded, since I work mainly in "good" projects. The reason I work mainly in NJ (other than being raised there) is that NJDOT has blessed us with the SLDs. Finding things like mileage – even occasionally basic things like noncontradictory information on termini – can be horrendous for other states. Thus I contribute where I can, with the information available to me. Perhaps once I'm done putting infoboxes on NJ, OR, and WA, I can research a little more deeply into what's available for other states. -- NORTH ^talk 06:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a question. Why is ANYTHING decided in IRC shaping the project without being discussed here first? Some of us don't use IRC and yet would still like to help make the big decisions. I think anything of this magnitude needs to be discussed on wiki first. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 18:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought this was clear enough, but I (and many other editors) am not a student anymore with hours of free time at our disposal. I don't have time for IRC. I'm cooking. Or cleaning. Or eating. Or spending time with my wife. Or working. Life stuff. Use it to gain stronger consensus on a future vote if you want, but don't vote about anything there, because I can guarantee I won't be there. —Rob (talk) 19:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Then you are implying that you do not want to get this project out of the state of trash.  V60 ^{干什么？ · VDemolitions · VRoads (路)} 19:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily, but I am only one person, and areas that have been traditionally my areas of contribution (and, I am intentionally saying this so that I don't say that these are "my articles") are what I know best. If you're asking me to pick up the Kentucky State Routes project, that's not going to happen, because, surprise surprise, I don't know anything about Kentucky State Routes.

Furthermore, this "state of trash" business seems squirrelly to begin with. If there aren't any contributors, there aren't any contributors - either go out and recruit more (good luck with that) or the project just goes idle until there are any. What more can you do? This is why, at the beginning of all things, I was okay with having an IL State Routes project and no WI routes project - other pages just do the job better, and without essentially a full-time contributor generating original content (or content from multiple sources), anything on Wisconsin routes would be redundant. Since then, a few contributors have started helping with that.

As for featured article status... have there been articles put up for peer review? (I know I-290 has...) Does it really even help? Again, in spite of Wikipedia's size, we are missing out on people who actually want to be involved in the subject, and in this case, can copyedit fairly well.

I do, however, have very real concerns about the state of most Interstate highway articles. —Rob (talk) 19:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not that those of us that don't participate in IRC don't want to improve the project, or even spend less time on it. But expecting everyone to be on there at the same time is a little wishful thinking. I agree with the assessment of the Interstate articles, that should be priority number 1, getting all of these up to standard. The interstate articles even have articles on other wikis, not many state highways can claim that, see the french version of I-27: fr:Interstate 27. --Holderca1 19:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Chill pill, Vishwin. Just because I've given in and appeared on IRC from time to time doesn't mean that I have any more desire to help improve this project. It's at the same high level it's always been. And you can see from their contributions that Rob and Holderca have that desire as well. -- NORTH ^talk 20:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but the efficiency has gone down. That's what I've also been trying to point out. The high level of participation is great, but time is money.  V60 ^{干什么？ · VDemolitions · VRoads (路)} 21:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually it's not. Not unless you're being paid to be on Wikipedia. In which case I want the link so I can join up too. Seriously though, can we all agree that decisions of magnitude need to stay off IRC and be discussed on Wiki? JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 21:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

No. And I wasn't referring to be paid to be on Wikipedia, it's that we need to work more efficiently and following the guidelines so that these articles are in the most respectable shape. IRC will still be used to make hard core decisions. That includes when an argument comes down to no consensus, we make the final decision on IRC.  V60 ^{干什么？ · VDemolitions · VRoads (路)} 21:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[Indent reset, edit conflict, and my take] Time isn't money if you're not getting paid for the time being spent on here, but I get what you're saying V60. I noticed some discussion on IRC. I'm inclined to agree with those who suggest decisions be made here. I believe that IRC should be used as a committee discussion, in which that committee comes to WT:USRD and come forth with the agreed upon proposals.

I am unable to get onto IRC simply because of time. It's not that I don't want to participate, but I don't have a whole lot of time. And the past few months, I've had no time, and recently, I've gotten the time to come on here and work on the state of some articles. I want to be active, but that's only if the rest of my life outside of the internet allows that.

I am not saying that IRC isn't useful. I think it's a great idea getting people together to make decisions. Instant messaging beats posting on a wiki, but ultimately, decisions should be made here, where all editors have the chance to be involved in the discussion - be it ten in the morning or ten at night. Hence the rationale for using IRC as a central committee putting forth ideas, which are then debated here. That's my take.

You have to excuse me, I know that other people have said that they don't have time. I am much in the same boat as what Rob said, though I don't have a wife. And as to what V60 said in response to that, I do want to see more FA and GA articles, I want to see the entire project be much more than in the state of trash. But you can't expect everyone to be able to contribute to a debate at a set time on IRC and then make that policy for the project. Again, I'm not trying to shoot down IRC. But . . . there are reservations about it.

I'm not trying to offend anyone, because I certainly am on Wikipedia a lot, and I certainly enjoy editing on Wikipedia more than most people I know, but I do have other things to do beyond the realm of Wikipedia. I need a source of income in order to pay for my connection to Wikipedia! No one in Wikipedia should expect an editor to be on here all times of the day so they can participate on IRC debates to set policy on Wikipedia. The purpose of the talk forum is for just that - to debate the state of the project, article, etcetera. And I digress to my suggestion: use IRC as a central committee who puts forth agreed upon concepts to this page for discussion of all editors interested in the discussion and are disenfranchised simply because they aren't available at the time of the IRC chat. --myselfalso 22:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I also completely disagree with IRC being used as the ultimate arbiter. IRC SHOULD NOT be used for that purpose. If there is No consensus then there is No consensus. That creates a devolution to an oligarchy. --myselfalso 22:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

<<<<Resetting indent and edit conflict x2. Explain again how you can establish consensus, when everyone is not a part of that discussion? Are you telling us that we have to conform to someone else's time schedule to have our opinions heard? While you can use IRC to get a working consensus, the result needs to come back here to establish that there is in fact a consensus and that it is in plain sight for everyone to see and for everyones comments to be on the public record. Vegaswikian 22:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Vegas and object to that to the highest degree to this whole IRC thing. IRC should not be the final resting place in the decision process as a good number of us either don't have access to or don't have time to use IRC. Any decisions made there must come on wiki for discussion first if you expect anyone to abide by them. If there is no record of it on wiki and no discussion here I don't see how you can consider it a valid guideline let alone force people to follow it. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 22:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

How can anybody not be able to have access to IRC when it's cross platform? Exceptions to this is when you have an overhyper firewall or you are at a place where Internet chat is restricted.  V60 ^{干什么？ · VDemolitions · VRoads (路)} 22:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I will fall into camp against the IRC. I come in to edit as I see fit, as I enjoy it. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to work due to a broken vertebrae, and I do have all the time in the world. But I see the real world, people work, have kids, have hobbies outside wikiland, and lives in general. We are invited to participate, but to be in the discussion its on someone's grounds- at a IRC chat at a certain time. The great thing about having discussions on here is its a 10am or 10pm discussion. Anytime, anywhere. Some may work nights, get off work and edit at 10 am...others work days, and edit at 10pm. They obviously aren't going to be able to be in IRC at the same time, thus if decisions are made in IRC, someone isn't being represent even if they want to. Its logged, ok. If a decision is made there, its not including everyone. I see both POV's here, but I feel IRC restricts openess of dicusion, because not everyone can be there at once. Plus the reason I do things here its optional. Making people come to meeting to participate doesn't make things optional. The way its almost being put here it seems (maybe I'm wrong, misreading, whatever, correct me if I am wrong)- if you don't come to the IRC on our time frame you aren't wanting to participate. Thats not right, nor is it correct....Feedloadr 23:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

A few comments:

1. IRC and when you can't get on:
   • If you can't get on because of previous engagements, such as family, friends, and such, don't worry about it. I know I can't get onto IRC for most of tomorrow since I'm going to NYC for a day, so that should be something that nobody ever mentions. That includes myselfalso not having enough time.
   • If you can't get on because you don't feel like it, then somebody's gonna be coming after you. This has already happened to NORTH and Mihsfbstadium, who opposed having IRC in the first place. Once they got on to IRC though, their opinions changed, having sort of a positive attitude towards IRC.
2. About IRC being the ultimate arbiter, who would be the ones who decides who would be the next president when the vote comes down to no consensus? Who would give a kid a detention when a discussion about the kid getting in or not getting in trouble comes down to no consensus? Think, people.
3. IRC meetings, when they are scheduled, are always logged afterwards. There is no way to log on the spot to the desired location, unless if you want a toolserver tool to get in a bunch of edit conflicts on that page.

Anyway, those are my two dollars for now.  V60 ^{干什么？ · VDemolitions · VRoads (路)} 22:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I completely disagree. Suggesting IRC should be the ultimate arbiter using a presidential election is false. 1) The House of Representatives of the United States Congress - elected by the people of the United States of America - determines the Presidency when there is no consensus from the Electoral College. 2) I think the Electoral College should be eliminated and should be left to popular vote. And if it were a popular election, there is no such thing as no consensus. When someone wins by one vote, they still win.

Also, by suggesting that there's no consensus when people are deciding when a child breaks a rule is also false. They are breaking a rule. There is one of two choices: right or wrong. That's pretty cut and dry. The fight comes between the parents and principal beyond that; that decision ultimately comes up to a school board - a school board chosen by the people.

As for being logged afterward, it's great that it is! And discussion should be. But, IRC should not be the ultimate arbiter, the ultimate decision maker. That should be left to the wiki. Wikipedia might not be a democracy, but I recall what I said before - Wikipedia should not be an oligarchy. --myselfalso 23:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. I have neither the time (job, girlfriend, etc...), ability (firewalled) or inclination to go on to IRC, but that doesn't mean I want to be left out of the process nor that anyone in my situation should be. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 23:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Please refrain from putting words in my mouth. Just because I participate there doesn't mean I think it should be used for building consensus. It can't. It's good for collaboration, nothing more. -- NORTH ^talk 23:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, we ought to be able to close this discussion now. In order to say something like, we're going to make our formal decisions on IRC instead of talk pages, you need consensus to do so. The discussion here and the prior one at WT:USRD/IRC make it clear that's never going to happen. -- NORTH ^talk 23:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Going forward it's obvious that no decisions on IRC, especially major ones are binding until there is some on wiki discussion. I know it's not fast enough for some people, but then to use another saying, "Rome wasn't built in a day." If it takes a week to do what IRC could do in an hour, so be it. We're not in any major rush to build the encyclopedia here, especially at the cost of true consensus. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 23:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I second that. I've been watching, and only recently put my word in. I see more people saying no than yes. At the least that is no consenus, and that alone is reason enough to me to not allow decisions to be made on IRC.Feedloadr 23:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Back to the meeting point, how come Mozilla's IRC channel tailored for meetings is successful? They have diverse people there as well, so how can it not work for USRD? And actually yes, we are in a rush to fix up these trashed articles, as they are in a state of trash. We are not going to create new projects/articles until these stubbed and trashed articles are cleaned up. It is hoped that everybody will do their part in cleaning up.  V60 ^{干什么？ · VDemolitions · VRoads (路)} 23:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Why are we in a rush to clean up stubs. A stub isn't "trash", it's a stub. I'd rather we take our time and move forward creating good articles with consensus rather then rush through changes in IRC and then have people come back and object later when they realize they've been steamrolled and then undo or ignore the IRC because it was invalid to begin with (like we have right here). But it's irrelevant as North pointed out. We have a consensus that IRC isn't the place to make big decisions. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 23:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

And we also have consensus that say that IRC is the place to make decisions. Three Four other invisible users that aren't here now say so. With the stubs, yes, they are trash, since they do not meet the design guidelines of USRD. The USRD design guidelines guarantee that the article should have at least Start-class. So yes, we are in a hurry to get these articles up to standards, since we are an embarassment to other WikiProjects and even Wikipedia itself.  V60 ^{干什么？ · VDemolitions · VRoads (路)} 23:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

WTF??? What consensus??? -- NORTH ^talk 00:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. WTF. We don't have consensus to use IRC for the WP, and even if we did it would be moot as doing so violates Wikipedia policy on IRCs, I'd point you to Wikipedia:IRC channels. I'm sorry but you just can't use IRC to bypass process because you want things to move faster. And frankly using stubs as an excuse seems a big inane to me. Stubs don't make us look like a joke. That's just your opinion. Frankly stubs are labeled as such because they are missing info that should be included, not because they're trash. All stubs should be classified as "start" because that's what a stub is, a start. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 00:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Are we in the same universe? Stubs do not equal trash. Not meeting a guideline does not make an article trash. We may want to get everything done now, but the reality is that will not happen. I might have more time here if there was not a ton of other work to do. I could spend all day on speedy deletions and still not catch up with the backlog there. Face the facts. IRC is fine for discussions but will not set guidelines. Vegaswikian 00:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I still can't figure out how IRC is magically going to solve all our problems. I still have the feeling that the intent is to remove as many editors as possible from the discussion so a false consensus is made. --Sable232 00:25, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to assume anything nefarious about fellow editors, especially nice road loving folks, but you may have a point. The IRC chatlogs that have been reproduced here do seem to feature 2, perhaps 3 editors. That's not a consensus considering there are dozens of active road users and probably hundreds of users total who though inactive may have an opinion on a big policy change. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 00:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[Indent reset and Double Edit Conflict] Consensus can change. Don't forget that. Secondly, where's the consensus? I don't recall seeing any discussion about using IRC as the means of getting things done in the project. Let me state this again. I AM NOT OPPOSED TO USING IRC AS A MEANS OF HOLDING DISCUSSION. Let me repeat myself: I AM NOT OPPOSED TO USING IRC AS A MEANS OF HOLDING DISCUSSION. Let me also add that when I saw the discussion from an IRC log, I didn't disagree with what was discussed. I was fine with that, but I'm inclined to agree with those who feel disenfranchised. By shifting the discussion from the talk pages to IRC, it is effectively disenfranchising those who are unable to participate in the discussion on IRC. This simply cannot happen. I will say what I said before. Use IRC as a central committee which puts out ideas born in the IRC discussion. Take this to a (suggestion:) WT:USRD/Proposals page and let the project as a whole decide on the proposed change. --myselfalso 00:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Section break #2

I'd like to add my own 2¢ in here.

First off, IRC is a useful tool for managing projects such as this, yes. People without IRC are at somewhat of a disadvantage. Nevertheless, though, keep in mind that not everyone can access it: what if you're browsing on a set-top box, or don't have privileges to install an IRC client, or you're behind a draconian web filter that blocks IRC traffic? Not to mention, of course, time issues.

However, there's technically nothing against the rules with deciding things on IRC; one of the primary rules of Wikipedia is be bold (and IAR). Anyone can decide anywhere what they're going to edit, that's the way wikis work. If you want to build consensus for changes on IRC, go ahead, be bold and do it.

However, many people have stated their objections to solely building consensus on IRC. While not required per se, it would certainly be nice to let their objections be heard, perhaps by at least announcing planned changes from IRC at least a day or two before carrying them out. (I like the idea of a "Proposals" subpage.)

I think the biggest problem is that everyone is going for each other's throats here. Keep cool, stay civil, assume good faith, and let's work out a solution that's best for everyone. Krimpet (talk/review) 00:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Use IRC as a central committee which puts out ideas born in the IRC discussion. Take this to a (suggestion:) WT:USRD/Proposals page and let the project as a whole decide on the proposed change. --myselfalso 00:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually Krimpet, "The Wikipedia channels on freenode are an unofficial place for Wikipedians to chat using IRC. As far as their influence on Wikipedia goes, IRC is equivalent to e-mail, or a conversation in a pub: chat is a private conversation which, in ordinary circumstances, has no effect on how one is treated on Wikipedia." seems to indicate that IRC should not be used for any official discussion, ie setting policies. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 01:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Here is my view regarding IRC:

• If you are not able to get on IRC for some reason (technical issues, or committments): That's not a problem and I am okay with that. In fact, many IRC members are notified of discussions they miss, and then they can give their input.
• If you don't want to use IRC and don't care about important discussions: I'm mostly okay with that.
• If you don't want to use IRC and do care about important discussions: In that case, I do have a problem with that.
• Furthermore, it's mostly collaboration, which is beneficial to the project. Most policy discussions don't happen as often on IRC. It's just the collaboration that makes it worthwhile. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:07, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Why do you have a problem with people who don't want to use IRC but want to be invovled? People come here to be on wikipedia, not IRC. Our edits are here, and policy and decisions need to be made here where others can put in their input. Policy decisions here are a democracy, and by taking the decision off site you take away the ability for anyone to input. We are showing we want our voices heard because we feel if its moved IRC it will not be heard. Once again, non consensus leaves the status quo, to leave policy making discussions on Wikipedia. I think discussions of policy and ideas and such are fine, but a decision needs to be left to the people, and thats what I think the ones disagreeing with the Pro-IRC crowd are afraid of. You say most don't happen on IRC, I think they want all decisions not made on IRC is the goal Uhg, headache. I'm tired, excuse any errors there. Feedloadr 03:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to agree with Feeloadr here. I have no objection to IRC being used to shape discussion or come up with ideas, but final sign off on ideas, especially large ones, needs an on wiki consensus. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 05:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad I missed this one, I think I have provided my viewpoint the other four times we discussed this. If we want to improve articles, we need to stop discussing the same thing over and over. --Holderca1 10:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why we keep discussing it. The consensus and vast majority seems to support no IRC for important decision from what I can see in this and the previous discussion. I'm only seeing 3 users who support IRC for decision making at all and only 2 who support it for major decision making. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 17:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Northenglish

Eh, let me name a section after myself while I watch the Gators finish thrashing the Buckeyes.

• As I've said before, I'm 100% in agreement with Myselfalso. I am not against IRC being used for discussion. IRC should be used for discussion.
• IRC cannot be used for building consensus. It's just a physical impossibility. That being said, Krimpet did have some valid points. People should not be afraid to be bold. If you want to discuss something on IRC and then implement it (i.e. the maint parameter in infobox road), go ahead and do it. However, be prepared to then discuss it on-wiki if someone objects. That's the way the flowchart on Wikipedia:Consensus works.
• I'm not familiar with the Mozilla IRC channel Vishwin used as an example, but I think I can still answer the question. Mozilla is not Wikipedia, meaning that it does not have seeking consensus as one of its five pillars. That being said, just because we can't change policy on IRC doesn't mean the channel won't be successful. I think the March 16th meeting was very successful. It took a while for people to get fully behind the status page, but I think for the most part we are now, and that will become an important tool in taking this project for the next level.
• IRC is important for doing things that need to be taken care of instantaneously, like the revert war during the I-238 discussion. IRC is a Good Thing when used correctly.
• Keep in mind that there are no leaders of the U.S. Roads WikiProject.

Ta-ta for now. -- NORTH ^talk 03:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, what you said. I was working on my response the same time. I just mutlitasked and it took longer. I echo your sentiments.Feedloadr 04:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)