Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Washington State Highways

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[edit] State law in the article

Since virtually none of the articles have it (including SR 525, which was used as an example), I've removed the "State law" section from the structure of the article. It seems wholly superfluous given the link in the infobox. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 23:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Civil dispute resolution

The purpose of this section is to do what the recent Arbcom case did not. The Arbcom told us to be civil, not to move war, to assume good faith, and to seek consenus. But the key word there is that it told us to seek consensus; it could not (and promised it would not) rule on what that consensus is or should be.

Thus, we are back where we started, although hopefully a little wiser. I propose that we re-start discussions from the very beginning. We all know where each other stands on this issue, but I would like everyone involved to restate what they think, and more importantly why they think it. This is both for our own benefit, and for the benefit of any new editors that wish to express their opinion on either the naming convention or the infobox.

Remember, this discussion is an effort to seek consensus, and neither side has consensus as of now for either issue. -- NORTH talk 23:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming convention

On the issue of the naming convention, I will act solely as a mediator. There are valid reasons for each of the two proposed naming convention, but it is in the best interest of the encyclopedia to reach a consensus on a single naming convention. -- NORTH talk 23:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

The Washington State Highways WikiProject has always used {{routeboxwa}}. SPUI proposed switching to the shorter {{infobox WA State Route}} in March, but the discussion yielded very little actual discussion, and a decision was made to table the discussion until after the mediation.

While I disagree with SPUI's hard and fast rule that an infobox must be less than a screen long, I do feel that many of the infoboxes on our pages are too long. The only information that seems to be lost in SPUI's condensed version (seen here and here) is the mileposts at the junctions, and even those are included on the second page. {{infobox WA State Route}} also seems to be more consistent with those used on Interstate and U.S. highways, as well as many other state route WikiProjects.

My preference would be to use something similar to SPUI's examples here, with the following two changes:

  • Change the top part (with the RCW section and "Number based on") to match the current infobox.
  • Take the map out of the infobox, and use it as a stand-alone image in the "Route description" section of the article. (Interstate 95 sort of does this.)

-- NORTH talk 23:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to accept North's changes with the understanding that the full route to route junction list will be retained as it was in the WA State Route infobox. Loss of the mileposts aren't a big concern of mine if they're included in an exist list later in the page, however I would like to see the full junction list retained since there really aren't many routes that the box would be overly long with it. And on the few that might be it's not against any policy or guideline and is much more informative. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 16:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it's informative, but how informative does it need to be? Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. While I disagree with a hard and fast one-screen rule, there's no excuse for the infobox to be longer than the article. (See State Route 20.) I'd prefer to cap it around 10 junctions. -- NORTH talk 23:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I think the way the New York State Routes Wikiproject is doing it is a good compromise. List major (whatever that means) junctions in the infobox and make a table of all junctions with state highways with mileposts in a separate section of the article. --Polaron | Talk 23:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I could go for that. (It doesn't seem that NY is being very consistent in implementing that standard though.) -- NORTH talk 23:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
It was only recently adopted (like a week ago) so many articles have not been "upgraded" yet. --Polaron | Talk 23:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Understood.
Here's an example of SPUI's SR 500 infobox with the changes I proposed. (I'm not quite up on template coding, so I did it by subst'ing and editing SPUI's. I'll try my hand at making a template later.) -- NORTH talk 23:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

How's this? --SPUI (T - C) 01:14, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

My main thing when I said to "Change the top part (with the RCW section and "Number based on") to match the current infobox," is that I think the link to the RCW section should be on a separate line from the route name. (I don't care much whether it says "RCW blah.blah.blah" or "legal definition".)
I also prefer "child of" to "number based on", but I don't care much about that. -- NORTH talk 20:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't see the need to put the link on a separate line. The "child" wording seems rather informal - is it used by anyone official? --SPUI (T - C) 21:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Like I said, I don't care much about child vs. number based on. (No, "child" isn't used by anyone official, but I can't find any source on WSDOT that groups the 5XX routes together using any sort of wording.)
The need of putting the RCW link on a separate line is to have the header of the infobox on its own line. If it fits on the same line as "Number based on", I'd be more in favor of that. -- NORTH talk 21:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I see the new infoboxes on User:SPUI/onthecaca with the header on it's own line, and I'm fully in favor of using the updated {{infobox WA State Route}}. Is anyone objecting? -- NORTH talk 23:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes! I can edit again! Well go ahead as long as there is no loss of info. That would be, either create the milepost box first before you switch over or copy and subst the routeboxwa to the talk page. Also I just made up "child" since that was the easiest way to put it. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 16:11, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we can definitely save the mileage table on the talk page if you want.
It's looking like consensus for the change to me... -- NORTH talk 16:52, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
As long as milage is saved and 10 or so (this should be slightly flexible since we don't yet have a def for "major") major junctions are in the infobox I can accept this change. Also do we really need the "child or decendent from" in the box? JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 17:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
10 is typically too many - we want a combination of major cities and major junctions, not every junction that happens to be with another state route. --SPUI (T - C) 17:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
No one said anything about every junction with a state route. We're talking major junctions only here. I would propose major be any Interstate/US Route junctions along with any highly used state route junctions. I'm sure we can find usage stats somewhere. As for major cities, we don't need a seperate list in my opinion but just have the city the junctions are in be noted. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 18:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm saying we should pick junctions so they give a list of the major cities. So for I-5 we don't use 10 junctions in Seattle, even if those are the most "major" ones. --SPUI (T - C) 18:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and call this as consensus in favor of using the shorter infobox. I have implemented it on State Route 539 (Washington) as a test run, and the milepost chart from the old infobox on SR 539 is located on the talk page. -- NORTH talk 02:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, the compromise was that a junction list be placed on the article? Where is that in the WikiProject standards? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 16:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

My edits were only the first step in the changeover. The reason I haven't included anything about the junction list is we haven't decided on any formatting or whatnot. Should it resemble what was originally in the infobox, or something closer to a full-out exit list? Where should we put it: as a subsection of route description? its own section after route description? somewhere else? -- NORTH talk 20:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd say more like an exit list. Also should this idea be taken to California? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

== Good night and good luck ==

It's nice to see that nothing's changed, and no one bothered to try to restart discussion on the naming convention. Since nothing has changed, I have chosen to leave Wikipedia. Have fun debating these issues amongst yourselves. -- NORTH talk 16:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of Washington State Routes organization and browsing order

First off, I encourage everyone to join the current discussion on Talk:List of Washington State Routes. User:Seicer would like to reorganize the list so that they are listed in numerical order, rather than 100-119 under US 101, 500-599 under I-5, etc. Input from editors other than Seicer and myself would be much appreciated.

Secondly, I'd like to propose that -- if we keep the list organized as it currently is -- we change the browsing order to reflect that. Since the routes are not numbered sequentially, it doesn't make much sense to browse them sequentially. Alternatively, if the numbering system isn't important enough to affect the browsing order, then it probably shouldn't be important enough to affect the list order.

If we do change the browsing order, the best way to do it (IMHO) would be to actually not have a browsing order at all in the infoboxes, and instead replace them with templates similar to {{Interstates}} and {{3di}} seen on the interstate highway pages.

Thoughts? -- NORTH talk 20:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Either way is fine with me. I wouldn't use templates such as {{Interstates}} though... those are big templates that applied to state highways will probably get deleted (example- VA, OR, RI). --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:24, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
If we didn't use templates, how would we accomplish a browsing order that matched the numbering system? -- NORTH talk 20:27, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
After looking at the TFD debates, the consensus seemed to be that they should be deleted because they would be better served by a succession box, or something else more compact. If we were to change the "browsing order" away from sequentially, then Washington would not be better served by a succession box. -- NORTH talk 20:35, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Big templates are frowned upon in Wikipedia. If I recall correctly, that's why the templates were deleted. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
That's for the most part untrue. As I said, I just read through the old TFD debates. If they were implemented in a fashion similar to the Interstate templates (which have never been up for TFD), we should be fine. -- NORTH talk 20:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Well there should be one template with all the primaries and one for each primary. And they should probably not go on Interstate or U.S. Route articles. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:55, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, although they should go on articles like Interstate 5 in Washington, should we choose to create them. -- NORTH talk 21:03, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
How about a sequential browsing order for the parent routes only? Then you could make a template for each parent route that lists all its child routes. This template could then go on the parent and all its child routes. --Polaron | Talk 21:26, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
At Talk:List of Washington State Routes I made two sample templates for I-5 and US 101. I'm still trying to make them look better, NORTH has been helping fix it. Sonic3KMaster(鉄也)(talk) 20:52, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

However, we still need to decide whether we're going to change the browsing order to match the numbering system -- or the List to match the browsing order. -- NORTH talk 21:24, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Decision making time

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was browse/list by parent route. -- NORTH talk 21:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

All right, so we've had time to debate the options. We've got examples of the templates up for your viewing pleasure at Talk:List of Washington State Routes. All that's left is to make an actual decision. I know voting is evil, nevertheless I'd like to do it in the form of a poll. As I see it, there are three voting options:

  • Browse/list by parent route using SonicMaster's templates here (or something similar). Main state routes would have two templates, one similar to {{interstates}} listing all the main routes, one listing the spur routes related to that route. U.S. and Interstate highways would have only the spur template, the main routes template would be replaced by browsing at the bottom (see U.S. Route 97 for example). Browsing would be removed from the infobox for all routes. (If you like this idea, but not necessarily the specific proposal, feel free to vote for this idea and propose changes.)
  • Browse/list sequentially. Route articles would remain unchanged; browsing would remain in the infobox. List of Washington State Routes would be reorganized so that instead of the table, we would have a list of the state routes (and state routes only -- U.S. and Interstate routes have already been split off into separate sections) ordered sequentially. The new list would look something similar to List of Routes in Vermont#Current.
  • Change nothing. List of Washington State Routes would continue to be organized according to parent route; route articles would continue to browse sequentially.

Voting will last approximately a week (until August 23rd). -- NORTH talk 21:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vote here

  • Browse/list by parent route per NORTH's reasons, it'll be easier to find routes that way. Sonic3KMaster(鉄也)(talk) 23:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Parent route looks good, as the numbering is more like the Interstates and U.S. Routes than most states. No opinion on whether we should use a modified browse section of the infobox or forgo the browsing altogether in favor of an Interstate-style box at the bottom. --SPUI (T - C) 23:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Browse/list by parent route -- But I would prefer browsing using the parent route sequence in the infobox and using only the secondary route templates (i.e. no primary route template). --Polaron | Talk 23:36, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] Minor details

Two things left to work out before we close the poll and implement stuff:

I agree with Polaron's idea to only use the secondary route templates. Agreed?

The other thing is: where do we classify 3-digit US and Interstate routes -- i.e. US 195 and I-405? I'd prefer to classify them as main routes rather than secondary routes for three reasons. First, U.S. and Interstate routes by definition should not be classified as secondary routes. Secondly, they're numbered according to they own system -- I-405 rather than SR 504. And thirdly, at least in the case of US 195 and US 395, they shouldn't be classified as secondary routes, because they have their own secondary routes coming off of them. -- NORTH talk 08:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. --Polaron | Talk 13:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
None of the three-digit Interstates have spurs though. I'd list 2DIs and all U.S. Routes as primary, but 3DIs as secondary. --SPUI (T - C) 05:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Even despite the other two reasons I gave? (classifying U.S./Interstate routes as secondary routes seems wrong; they're not numbered according to the same system we're using to divide routes into primary and secondary) -- NORTH talk 08:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
They're also clearly spurs of other routes. Why would putting say I-205 in the "spurs of I-5" box imply that it's numbered the same as the non-Interstate spurs? --SPUI (T - C) 08:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
It wouldn't necessarily imply that it's numbered the same, but the purpose of the new template would be to list the state routes based on that route. Another reason that I-205 and 405 can't get the new template is because they already have the {{3di}} template that serves the same purpose as the new one for interstate routes. -- NORTH talk 05:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I've created the template header, and the template for I-5. The name of the template is {{3dwa}}, which takes two parameters, type= and route= (ex. type=Interstate and route=5). Then, in the same manner of {{3di}}, it calls a separate template for the route list, located at (for example) {{3dwa 5}}. I did take out the interstate routes, as this template wouldn't be used on the I-205 page since {{3di}} already is on that page; however, it's really easy to add them back. -- NORTH talk 22:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Update: I've completed the templates for I-5, US 101, and US 2 and put them on the perspective routes. Unfortunately, I need to sign off for the night. I'll see you guys later. -- NORTH talk 23:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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) 00:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Newbie

I would be interested in helping on this project, but first I have a couple questions.

  • 1 - Is the fighting over or at least calmed down below war stage?
  • 2 - Can some one clean up this page and just leave the decisions on formating and stuff? (it is pretty easy to review the history if you really want to, without leaving it on the front page)
  • 3 - Do you want a newbies help?

Jeepday 03:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

    • The fighting... has gotten a lot better. There's more stuff including a med cabal trying to resolve all of this coming.
    • The discussions are archived after 30 days. If we come to consensus on something then the main page gets updated.
    • Go ahead, your help is welcome. :)

--Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:04, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

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