User:Caroig/RaceTrack

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Washington Park
Washington Track
Race Track
Washington Park Race Track, c. 1903.
Official name: Washington Park Race Track
Country	United States
State	Illinois
County	Cook
City	Chicago
Address	100 Blah Street
- elevation	594 ft (181 m)
- coordinates	41°46′55″N 87°36′39″W / 41.78194, -87.61083
Length	1.029 mi (1.656 km), Oval
Front Stretch	11°
- Back Stretch	5°
Major Events	American Derby
Race Type	Thoroughbred
Material	Dirt
Broke Ground	1893
- Opened	1894
- Closed	1977
Owner	Washington Park Jockey Club
Construction Cost	$70 million USD
Location of Chicagoland Speedway within Illinois.
Location of Illinois in the United States

Comments:

• I prefer the name to be short, i.e. without the category word which gets repeated on the second line (if you wish, you can put the fuul name to the official_name fields), this is no rule, it just looks better (IMO)
• I've added length_round field to keep same precision for both imperial and metric values
• There are a couple of number fields in the dimension section (these are for any numbbers without deafult units and conversions) which can be used for the Turns
• I've put Race Type and Major Events to other fields in the Features section (these can be indexed and get wikilinked automatically), I guess this data looks better at one place, we may add a new field (event) to the Geobox template instead of (mis)using the period field, style and type are similar words, period and event not so much.
• The established fields probably don't need the Year word, it's quite obvious what the value is, besides, it's not used for settlements either.
• The address might fit better to the location field, that's what it is for
• US map for non-US readers

Ok, this looks good, but won't know for sure how it all will fit until I have used it in a few articles. Once we do have it up and going, I will have to bring it up to the NASCAR group also about the geobox. Instead of Free Fields for Construction Cost, could we make that a set setting? Most tracks will probably have that information. I also removed former name and moved that up to the top to "other names".--Kranar drogin 18:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Construction Cost should be under History.--Kranar drogin 18:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure, probably most tracks would but not other Geoboxes for Settlements, Rivers, Mountains … I guess this is a too feature specific field and that's what the free fields are for. And it's definitely a good idea to try it out first at more racetracks, there might be some other issues we don't see yet. – Caroig (talk) 18:51, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Last thing, is the coloring going to be Yellow or Brown up at the top then? I suppose keeping it along the same lines as other human creations would be best.--Kranar drogin 20:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, brown's for geology related features (mountains, ranges, valleys ...). So probably yellowish, although there are not many Geoboxes in this category so it might be a completely different color (you can add racetrack separately to the Template:Geobox2 color and test other colors). There's one more thing, all those recognized types in the yellow family (monument, building and bridge) override the default miles/kilometres to feet/metres, should this be applied to racetracks as well (you've used miles in this test case)? The default units can be also set individually for each Geobox using length_unit etc. fields so it's just questions which units would prevail in most racetracks. – Caroig (talk) 20:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the default units should be miles. Because, almost all racetracks are referred to in miles, not feet. As far as color, I am thinking Yellow is ok for now. Let me see what they are using for the infobox first besides that brown. I don't know how to use that colors page, but I can tinker. I am thinking most people who like racing are not going to like a yellow color, imo.--Kranar drogin 21:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Yellow will be fine for coloring.--Kranar drogin 21:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

There's no need to change the code then (should the default units be the longer ones) and I've set up the coloring too (no problem to change it for another color any time). – Caroig (talk) 21:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I have added it to two articles so far, Chicagoland Speedway and Washington Park Race Track. Tell me what you think of it so far. The "Visitation" under Chicagoland Speedway, is there a way to make that Seating Capacity, or will I have to use a free field?--Kranar drogin 22:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

As of vistitation, you can do that in the same way as with any other fields, using the visitation_type field (you can add _type to every single field and change the displayed text). I've updated the Chicagoland Speedway article (I prefer shorter labels thus Seats, but if you prefer Seating Capacity … you're the editor here). I also split the style and period fields into the indexed fields, it's the prefered way - the data in the Geobox should be without any formatting tags. And if I may I would switch the Opened and Broke Ground fields, if a single date is quoted for any construction it's definitelly the former and so it should be dislayed first if more dates are present. Otherewise it looks great. – Caroig (talk) 23:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

There's now an alternative calibrated map … 00:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

A question came up, how about multiple tracks similar to Daytona International Speedway. How would you suggest I go about doing that? I said we could just number them 1, 2, 3, but I think they want the breaks in there with the name above each one. Suggestions?--Kranar drogin 02:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)