Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Texas State Highways/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This page is an archive. Please do not edit the contents of this page. Direct any additional comments to the current talk page.

Lists, Articles and Categories

Yes, I know there are already some lists and articles out there, and one of the categories is yet-to-be-built. I'll rassle that down later this evening. DavidBavousett 23:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Farm to Market infobox

I have put together an attempt at a infoxbox for Farm to Market Roads. The template is {{TxFMBox}}, and a sample can be seen at Texas Farm to Market Road 511. 25or6to4 09:46, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Excellent! 25or6to4, it's good to have you aboard. I've been out-of-pocket the last few days, but am hoping to get started on west Texas roads shortly. That template looks good, and consistent enough with {{TxRouteBox}} to work just fine. Have you looked at the discussion here about the FM generalities pages? Any thoughts on that, before I move ahead with it? DavidBavousett 14:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey thanks! I read over the post about the FM generalities and I think the direction you proposed will work good. The only thing I am wondering is the FM page vs. the RM page and which redirects to which. I have no preference either way, but think that both names should be designated in the first line of whichever page is used. I also made slight change to the template where you can designate whether it's a FtM or a RtM road (use FM or RM), and it should load the pictures properly. When the sign images were loaded, were any urban Road signs added? Are there any Urban Road signs? 25or6to4 03:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for making the RM template variant; there are 185 RMs and 3639 FMs in the TxDOT files; URs are locatable by selecting "any" road type, and using the number; you'll get the FM or RM and the UR. As I understand it, there aren't any UR signs; they just use the FM or RM sign. My thinking on the FM/RM page is that FM will be the main page, since there are more of them, and RM will redirect. The opening paragraph will be a quick, quick summary of the difference between the two. Basically, I'll swap the current information at Texas ranch to market road and the redirect to it currently at Texas farm to market road. The more-general term farm to market road (with a redirect from ranch to market road will speak generally about this type of road, with links to those states that have such systems, as the pages are cooked up. Make sense? (If it does, and you have the notion, go ahead and make that edit; thinks have been *nuts* around here.) Once we've got that all straightened out, I'd say let's start rassling down some roads! DavidBavousett 03:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Texas

Some articles covered by this WikiProject lack photographs. As part of a subcategorization of the requested photos category, there is now a category for Texas articles needing photos - to use it, just add {{reqphotoin|Texas}} to the article's talk page. I have only added a few articles to the category so far, but it would be an easy way to make an extensive list California-related articles lacking photos. I hope you find it useful! TheGrappler 05:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Concerning infoboxen

I propose a standard that seems to be the general consensus elsewhere concerning what roads to put in the infoboxen for state highways, in the interest of simplification:

List only highways of the same type, or of a "greater" type. In the Interstate Highways project, it seems that (for the most part) only intersections with other interstates are listed. In US highways, only intersections with other US highways, or interstates, are given. In Texas, that would mean that State Highway infoboxen would include other SHs, US Highways, or Interstates, and only FM/RMs would include other FM/RMs.

Does this make sense? Look at this version of SH 114, for a good reason why not to include lower-designated highways on the infoboxen. The current version of SH 36, while long as-is, would be very unweildy if all of the FMs that intersect it were listed! Any thoughts, from anyone? DavidBavousett 04:24, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that with one exception, if a state highway ends at a farm to market road, the farm to market road should be included. --Holderca1 16:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I can buy that; the terminus of a road should be shown in every case; if a US highway ends at a state or FM, etc etc.. DavidBavousett 18:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey all. I also agree with the above. I'm now back from honeymoon, so I will peck away at a couple of these from time to time. I will also continue with new SH information, when I can get around to it.25or6to4 17:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Changed the infobox to point to the SVG shields rather than the PNG version. --Holderca1 17:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking this change may need to wait. There are some svg images that haven't been made yet (see SH 101 for examples). I'll leave it up to you all if you want to temporarily change back or not, or finish/fix the rest of the svg's. 25or6to4 18:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

What exactly does it take to convert the images from png to svg. This is something that I have never done. What software is required? Is this software freeware? --Holderca1 14:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Another thing I would like to bring up regarding the infoboxes is the length. See Highway 6 for example. The infobox is roughly 4 times as long as the written text. I think it would be extremely difficult to write enough on Highway 6 to fill in all of that white space. I propose we move a lot of the detailed information from the infobox to the article. We can include all the counties, all the junctions in the main article, and just leave the major juctions in the infobox. Any thoughts? --Holderca1 14:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is a couple examples of the infobox I think we should use on the articles, you use the ssame template regardless of what type of highway it is, in the type field you put in either State, Loop, Spur, Farm, or Ranch. All the information that is not listed in these and listed in the infobox currently in use would be moved to the main article, that way the article itself will have more content then the infoboxes, the way it should be. --Holderca1 15:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

State Highway 151
Length:	10.7[1] mi (17.1 km)
Formed:	1984[1]
West end:	Loop 1604 in San Antonio
Major junctions:	Interstate 410
East end:	US 90 in San Antonio
Highways in Texas < SH 150 SH 152 >

Farm to Market Road 294
Length:	38.2 mi (61.1 km)
Formed:	1945
North end:	State Highway 152 in Skellytown
Major junctions:	Interstate 40 west of Groom
South end:	US 287 in Goodnight
Highways in Texas < Image:Texas FM 293.svg FM 293 FM 295 >

Old Texas road signs

Hey all. Noticed on Google that there are a couple pictures of the original Texas Route markers, and that they don't look like the images that are being used on Wikipedia. Does anyone else have any other images of either? Here's the link to the image I found. [1] 25or6to4 01:10, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I've done a little hunting, and there doesn't seem to be any firm references one way or the other that I can locate as to the "official" outdated form of the sign; photographic evidence, however, looks pretty concrete to me; I don't see the Wikipedia form of the sign *anywhere*. Anyone up for the (mildly tedious) chore of putting up more-correct images, or have any useful bits of wisdom? (Do we even care?) DavidBavousett 02:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I found an image of the road sign we're using now.

Here's my thought. The sign I originally found was the original road sign circa 1920s/30s or so. Checking the history and location of the highways in the above picture, the picture was taken in Waco. Checking the history link of the image, it was taken in November 1939. There's also a secondary picture on the original site that was also taken Nov 1939, that has the signs for SH 6 and SH 31. So it looks like we're looking at 3 different sign types for Texas now... 25or6to4 17:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed article ideas

Please see State Highway 151 (Texas) for my proposed article ideas. Mainly the infobox and the proposed template at the bottom of the articles. --Holderca1 14:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Clean-up tag

If you come across an article that needs cleaned up or has a generic clean-up tag, put this on instead, will make it easier to find the articles pertaining to this project that need cleaned up.--Holderca1 14:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC) {{Cleanuptxsh}}

This Texas State Highway article needs to be cleaned up to conform to both a higher standard of article quality and accepted design standards outlined in the WikiProject Texas State Highways. After the article has been cleaned up, you may remove this message. For help, see How to Edit a Page, Category:Wikipedia help and the project page.

No reason has been given for tagging this article as in need of cleanup.
Please provide rationale, including an explanation of what work needs to be done.

Wikipedia:State route naming conventions poll/Part2

Your state is invited to participate in discussions for its highway naming convention. Please feel free to participate in this discussion. If you already have a convention that follows the State Name Type xx designation, it is possible to request an exemption as well. Thanks! --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 00:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, since the previous discussions regarding the Texas projects got lost in the huge amount of discussion on the poll discussion page, I'm going to put my thoughts here, to minimize my confusion a bit. When I originally started editing some of the highway pages for Texas, they were at P1. I had seen some of the page reverting in other states, and watched from afar. One day, the pages began to be shifted to P2 without discussion. I, just wanting to write articles and not truly caring how they were named, took a couple days off and returned to work on articles. I even shifted one article, just so knew that I could do it right and for consistency ONLY. Ever since then I've been typing in P2 style, because that's were all the articles lie. I watched the arbitration, watched the vote on principle 1, made my vote known on principle 2. I personally prefer the P1 style. I just as surprised that there has been nary a peep from the Texas project on this discussion. I felt that P1 had been agreed on, including the <Texas> provision, and was willing to start moving articles to the P1 style manually as soon as it was ratified. I just want something decided so I can start writing new articles again. I don't know what else to say. This is my thoughts and my thoughts only, I needed to let my semi-frustrations out. 25or6to4 03:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

No kidding, I just this all to be over with. I don't care where the articles are but it appears that Texas will be <Texas> State Highway XX. I would go ahead and start making new articles at Texas State Highway XX, since that is the way it will be. I don't think there is any rush to move the pages currently in place. Since there is not a dispute over where it should be, they don't have to be moved immediately as long as redirects exist, which they do. --Holderca1 13:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Article assessment

I have added our project to the assessment system. It is fairly easy to use, in the our wikiproject template you simply add a class and importance field. The class field can be FA, GA, A, B, Start, Stub, NA(For non-articles such as template, categories, ect..). The importance field can be Top, High, Mid, or Low. The importance field is relevent to this project, not in general. Right now I have included the Texas state highways and Texas Department of Transportation as the only two that fit into the Top category. Now, it is not realistic to have every article in this project make it as a Featured Article, just the fact that there is only one FA a day and when complete this project will have over 3,000 articles makes it an impossible goal. It is possible to make them all Good Articles though. Also, I believe our Top articles can be Featured. Right now I am rating them all as Start or Stub class, simply because that is the easiest way to seperate them. For the importance field, all Farm roads are Low, State highways are Mid, this is the minimum though, it is certainly possible for some to be higher, Beltway 8 for example I would rate higher than a ordinary state highway. Here is an example of the code to input:

{{Texas State Highway WikiProject|class=Start|importance=Top}}

--Holderca1 14:28, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Maps in infoboxes

It is now possible to add maps to Texas highway articles. In the infobox code, simply type map=insert file name here.png, no need to add brackets or Image:, the template takes care of everything. To request a map, go here: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Maps task force/Requests. --Holderca1 22:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Interstate 10 in Texas

Since this article is part of this project, I thought I'ld better discuss this here first. Basically, this article is nothing but an exit list (all the other info is already in the main Interstate 10 article). I would like to propose this article (and any similar ones, if such exist) for deletion, but I'ld like some input first. Do you feel that this article is indeed part fo the scope of this project (from the project description, I would say it isn't)? Do you think an exit list is encyclopedic enough to keep (as compared to what is described at WP:NOT and so on)? Could this article be saved by dropping the exit list but adding other info that is important enough to have in an encyclopedia, but not important enough (ortoo long) to have in the main article on Interstate 10? If the answer is three times no, I think the article should go. Fram 08:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The article hasn't even existed for 24 hours yet. It takes time to develop. See Interstate 10 in California, Interstate 10 in Louisiana, and Interstate 10 in Florida for other examples. --Holderca1 11:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to work on the article, assuming it is kept. The Texas section does have some unique (or at least very rare) aspects such as 80mph speed limits, longest in U.S. within one state, a few non-controlled access points in West Texas, the soon-to-be 26-lane portion near Bunker Hill Road in Houston, 4-lane (2 each way) tollway in the median of the Katy Freeway, the soon-to-be youngest 5-level stack interchange ever demolished (at Beltway 8 West, 1989-2006), etc. .... There are also plenty of standard facts that could eventually be added (such as frontage road mileage), hurricane evacuation contraflow lane information, and information about the history of the road. Let's give the article more than one day to develop. Thanks. Ufwuct 15:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Allright, that's why I asked? No problem with an article about a section of a highway if it has remarkable info (26 lanes is pretty impressive). I still dislike the huge exit lists though, but that's a minor point. No worries, there won't be a ProD or AfD from me on these articles! Fram 15:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I am planning to submit this as a Did You Know? for the main page since this is a new article. Since you are more familiar with the Houston area than I am, do you mind expanding it a bit more? The majority of what is on there now is about the Katy Freeway. It is pretty close to being presentable as is, I have moved the exit list to the talk page pending its completion and the creation of all the needed shields, it is a bit of a red link eye sore at the moment. Getting ready to add on the auxillary route information. --Holderca1 15:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

It made it, this article is currently on the main page as a Did You Know? --Holderca1 19:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)