Template talk:Infobox Interstate/Archive 3

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Making the template smaller

I hope you don't mind, but I've been bold and moved the legend to a sub-page of the wikiproject page, and linked to it in the template. Feel free to revert me if you don't like the change. Scott5114 06:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I suppose a subpage of the template itself might be better... but in the end it really doesn't matter. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 06:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I think you're right. Should we move it? --Chris 13:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Good idea! I put a more detailed table there. --Chris 13:43, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Re-format

Heya guys. I've been looking at this template and I have some ways of simplifying its design, while preserving the functionality. I've got a design which works, but involves updating the articles (which I'll take care of). This brings it in line with other similar Infobox templates:

  1. Remove dependance on the route_type parameter, and especially the "loopdirsub" and "regdirsub" nested templates
  2. Rename to "Template:Infobox Interstate" naming convention
  3. Make use of the table caption and row header features, for Accessibility reasons

I'll be updating the articles to reflect the template name change, and to remove route_type. I'll also be removing any empty direction_a/b and terminus_a/b parameters from articles - loops won't ever need these, and their presence may confuse editors. It also allows me to simply use a parameter default to display "Loop" in the direction row. Let me know if there are any objections. -- Netoholic @ 16:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good as long as it is not subst'ed. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Please do proceed. --Chris 03:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Let us know what you have in mind... I used loop and reg to switch between the two "modes", but that might not be the best way. —Rob (talk) 02:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Just remove the junctions entirely. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 04:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
And throw out the concise summary of the interstate's routing? And mess up the states that need stuff in there? We've shrunken it down drastically over the last month. Now look at Interstate 5- it had over 20 junctions but now has like 4-6. I don't see why this needs to be removed. There's other stuff in the templte that is more redundant such as terminii and cities. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, get rid of the cities too. Something like {{infobox highway}} would be perfect. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 04:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
In all honesty I think either the terminii or cities can stay but not both. Preferably one should stay and I would say terminii because of the cities list in most of the articles, and this saves the most space. But junctions should probably stay because it does provide a good summary for the exit list-less articles, and even for the ones that ahve exit lists. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Now THIS is a decent size. I still have issues with the separate lines for the two termini, which requires meta-templates because of the possibility of loops. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 09:50, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

If this is the consensus, I'll abide by it. I just have two comments. First, should you set the Major Junctions header to span both columns? Second, the routes are on the shorter column when their names are usually longer. Perhaps the guideline should say they should be switched?--WhosAsking 10:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Never mind. I think I see where this is going. --WhosAsking 10:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

How about another idea? Would creating a section for one-liner notes be too much--just to bullet the most notable things about an interstate? For example, I-90 could have a note saying, "Longest Interstate route", I-238 could have one saying like, "There is no parent I-38.", and I-95 could note, "There is a gap in New Jersey." --WhosAsking 11:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

That's the kind of thing that we have an intro for - the most notable things. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 11:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
But there are some details that are significant and yet don't make sense in an intro, such as the I-95 gap. A note section wouldn't have to be used often (in fact, I think it would only be used rarely), but it would still provide a place for the rare "odd but important" note.
Actually that could go in the intro - I'll add it now. It seems important enough. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 16:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Just a request, I'm not sure how practical this is, but if there could be some sort of optional parameter to specify a single state name, and if it's used, then it would use Image:Interstate X (STATE).svg. This is especially useful where it has two sides, each being intrastate. Like I-88 (then there's zillions of intrastate 3dis) --Chris 13:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, we could go to something like {{infobox highway}}, where the actual filename is specified, but that would require changing them all over. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 15:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

One more stupid, completely unrelated question: why the hell is the border green? Is that an artifact from California? (I'm pretty sure the first reversion of this was almost identical.) --Chris 14:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

All Interstate highways that are in New York State have been redone. The infoboxes, I mean. Having just redone like 20 of them, I think I like it. Was alot of work though. I made {{routeboxint/quick}} to make it very easy to add normal interstate junctions. I also made {{routeboxint/shortdirsub}} for highways without any major junctions between its terminii. I introduced the shield_ext parameter for future use in using shields with state names. I'd really appreciate it if everyone could at least put it in as blank on all of those that they work on. Thanks. --Chris 04:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

stupid me somehow missed mediawiki's default parameter functionality. I'll have this working as soon as I have shields up for the many that I set the parameter. I'm having a script generate them now. --Chris 23:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
This should all be fully up and running now; don't set shield_ext until a shield is present, like the guidelines say. If you don't feel like making your own, request one. I also put the infobox throughout Hawaii. (I know it's the furthest area from me, but it doesn't seem to get alot of attention.) --Chris 04:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
How do we do Alaska and Puerto Rico? Split the page? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, those are different from Hawaii in that none of those are signed, while I think all of them in Hawaii are now signed (H201 recently). Also, in Alaska (maybe also PR), they aren't really freeways. Not to mention Puerto Rico isn't a state, and does not connect to any state, so it really doesn't make sense as a component of an interstate highway system. Anyway, my point is that they don't exactly fit into the continental-based infobox as well as hawaii does. Although this applies to Hawaii also, the fact that they aren't connected to the rest of the system means that there is less of a reason to implement the infobox. I think they should be left as-is, but if someone wants to redo them, fine. --Chris 05:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Exit guides

Seeing as my pages have suddenly exploded into table code, I'll change it after we reach an understanding... are exit lists a good thing or a bad thing? I still see them as a bad thing, or something that at least should be confined to a subpage, but that's my opinion. It's hard to derive "major junctions" from 3dis, the urban ones especially. Major by volume? By interstate? —Rob (talk) 14:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, looks like the CSS hack to not show the major junctions line if there are none screwed it up - I'll undo that for now. As for exit lists, that kind of thing should not go in an infobox. An infobox is for a summary of the topic. An exit list would be a separate section, like on Interstate 94 or Interstate 99. For major junctions, I'd restrict it to Interstates and other major long-distance freeways (like Florida's Turnpike), and only list at most 8 or so for really long Interstates. You don't have to list any - just leave the field blank. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 15:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
It makes sense not to have it in the infobox... I think the junctions started as a summary of junctions, i.e. major junctions. They grew a bit. :-) I have an acute, (and possibly unfounded), fear of lists and tables in articles, though. I have a slightly negative opinion that full exit lists should belong in main Interstate articles at all, if only because it removes from the fact that a good, thorough summary of the information could be written instead and make a better article.
I understand this is a generic argument and not very specific, and also that I may be in the minority in this one, but even if it were an established standard on Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Interstate Highways, I'd still bring up the point. Now, if its inclusion is meant as a guide to travelers, I can understand why it's in there. —Rob (talk) 17:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
The list started off being huge, due to the fact that it was directly derived from the California one, and that's how they did it. Fairly recently, in the past few months, big pushes have been made to shorten them. A full list definetely does not belong in the infobox, but an exit listing, perhaps with the major junctions highlighted somehow (different background, bold, shields, etc), I think can be useful in an article, especially if you want to be able to travel the articles just as easily as the roads themselves. I'm not so sure the exit#s are necessary in the infobox; although, certianly in the full list. --Chris 20:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. What's the ideal working example of an exit guide, then? —Rob (talk) 01:36, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's my comments about the reformat... States: Probably should have been tossed. Cities: Should have been tossed. Type3 is now moot, so it is good that that went too. My only concerns are now the major junctions. While I disagree with the removal of the exit numbers I'm willing to compromise here... like take Interstate 99... it has an exit list so we don't need exit numbers on htat one. But not all of these Interstates have an exit list. And what about routes like Interstate 80? If we did an exit list on that one it would be extremely long. The cities are good to have in the junctions box though. Otherwise good work. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Well if anyone wants the data when there is no exit list they can look in history. Let's just change all the routeboxes to use the new junction format. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:37, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Exit numbers really aren't all that useful for multistate routes, as you have to calculate the distance in the state and then in the next state, and there is the occasional route that's not numbered from the line. Giving a nearby town, on the other hand, is a pretty good indication of where the junction is. As for long exit lists, Interstate 80 in New Jersey has one. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 13:19, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

All CA routeboxes are corrected, WA will soon follow. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 06:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm - there's still one (minor) issue. On Interstate 695 (District of Columbia) there's nowhere to put Washington, DC in the infobox without putting it everywhere, which seems redundant. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 13:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I had this problem with prettty much every 3di in NYC; except for 495 and 278, i think they are all intracity. --Chris 21:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Legend

Can we throw it out now that we no longer need it? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

probably shouldn't delete it completely; it has some historical value. --Chris 21:19, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Length parameter in nonstandard formatting

I've noticed a move away from standard number formatting for the lengths: e.g. on I-20's page, 1539 mi instead of 1,539 mi. Is there a reason for this preference? We don't seem short on real estate in the box, so it doesn't seem to be causing a text wrap problem. (Whereas the old box led to lines wrapping between the number and the length in km.) C.Fred 16:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought not including the comma in a four-digit number was standard - we certainly don't use it in years. The MOS certainly doesn't set any standard of using commas on four-digit numbers, just saying "very large numbers may be divided up by commas every three places". --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 21:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Years are the exception that way. (Or they will be for another 8,000 years or so, and I won't be around to have to worry about the change then.) Buried at the bottom of the MOS is an example of a <10,000 number that does display the comma, something along the style of 1,234.56. C.Fred 01:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)