Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways/Archive 7

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Archive 1

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Archive 5

Change of outlook at ACR

I'm going to be WP:BOLD and close this since the latest proposal has no objections and has been open for 3 weeks. ACR will be changed to conform to Proposal 2, noting that spotchecks are every year and by user request. --Rs chen 7754 04:08, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

For what's it's worth, people look at A-class review, there are many articles sitting there. People have complained off-site about the lack of reviewers, so I am going to bring back a proposal from the dead.

We have eight ACRs at the moment, 6 by 3 editors alone. In effect, I know I would post my own and review some if we had less articles to review. Personally, I want to propose we change the system to have one ACR per person, which would drop our current queue to five articles. At the same time, I also propose a max of anywhere between 1-5 articles at ACR at a time to prevent reviewer burnout, which also in effect seems to be a major problem.

I personally would rather have 1 article at ACR at a time, which I also hereby propose, but that is not set in stone, hence the 1-5 earlier. Let's talk, we've done it before, but something needs to be done. Mitch32^{(The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.)} 05:55, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I think the reason it's so backlogged is because the focus is being put on more than one article at a time. If the focus is on only one article at a time, we as a project can make sure that the article is in the best shape it can be before being sent off to FAC. I believe that what we should do is only allow one article at a time to be reviewed, but allow a queue of as long as four other articles to be set up behind it, making sure the queue only has one article per editor. T C N7JM 05:59, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I do not think that we should limit ACR to having a certain number of articles at a time, as that is not fair to editors who want to nominate articles but cannot because other people already have articles there. Rather, I would prefer if we limit editors to nominating one article at a time at ACR, as that would be fair in that a single editor is not clogging the venue with 5 or so articles and would allow multiple editors to be able to use the venue at the same time without there being too many articles. This is similar to the limits that are imposed on editors at FAC. If we were to do this, we would need to grandfather the articles that are already at ACR to remain there, even if an editor has multiple articles there currently. However, editors with articles currently at ACR would not be allowed to send any more articles there until all their reviews are closed. In addition, another idea to foster reviews may be to impose quid pro quo, in which editors who send articles to ACR must conduct a review of another article at the venue. This is similar to what is used at DYK. Dough 48 72 06:04, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

What happens if the nominator takes a long time to address the issues? Due to either real-life issues or due to just ignoring them (both of which happen on a regular basis in the current system, and which lead to my pings that people seem to be upset about). Then we really have an ACR that is stuck. --Rs chen 7754 06:04, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

As opposed to the current system? T C N7JM 06:06, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, at least now people can review other articles if one nominator is not responding for whatever reason. This system wouldn't even allow that. --Rs chen 7754 06:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well of course you use common sense if the nominator can't respond to concerns. My argument still stands that the reason we're so backlogged is because the reviews we have are being spread out among eight different articles instead of just one or two. T C N7JM 06:09, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Which is what, exactly? People ignore stuff because they don't like the review, they are busy in real life, they forget, they need more time to work on resolving the points, etc. Are we going to legislate for all of these scenarios, which happen all the time? Basically you're asking that a nominator be willing to address all concerns within 24 hours, which just simply isn't sustainable. Oh, and it won't eliminate the problem of my annoying pings, it will just make it worse. --Rs chen 7754 06:12, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

By "use common sense" I meant "review the first article in the queue". Also, that's not what I'm asking at all; I'm asking that the quantity of reviews we have now be focused on one (or two) articles, not that that quantity be magically increased or that the nominator be forced to address concerns more quickly.

Obviously, my idea is more of the base of a proposal than it is an actual proposal, but you still haven't addressed my main point. T C N7JM 06:19, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

If people can review the first article in the queue, then why not the second, if that person is slow to respond, too? That isn't much different than the status quo. And yes, people *should* be reviewing the older nominations first even now...

And regarding your main point, 5 articles (with one article per editor) is better than 8 articles (status quo); that's just basic probability theory. --Rs chen 7754 06:22, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

But still not ideal. And people should review older nominations first, but they often don't. Probably because it's optional. T C N7JM 06:26, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, yes, if you have 3 balls and you are spreading them out among 1 bin, then yes, in theory that 1 bin would get 3 balls pretty quickly. But if you have one nominator who is slow to respond, for whatever reason, it would quickly stall the entire process, and that negative would outweigh any positives gained with 1 article max versus 5 articles max. I usually ping when someone hasn't responded in 2-4 weeks; it would have to be more like 2-4 days if we went to what you're advocating. --Rs chen 7754 06:32, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, what if we did something like this? We can have a maximum of five articles nominated at a time, but we require that the articles be reviewed in chronological order? T C N7JM 06:36, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I think the simplest solution is just limiting it to one article per editor. An upper limit will come naturally as we only have 4-5 people who use ACR on a regular basis. I realize that for some of us one article per editor will be a bit of a hardship, but that's more motivation for us to review so that our one article will pass through the process more quickly. --Rs chen 7754 06:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

An upper limit will come naturally, but will only increase as the project grows. Setting a hard limit now gets rid of that possibility. T C N7JM 06:12, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, but then in theory we would have more reviewers, too... --Rs chen 7754 06:13, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

And less focus. T C N7JM 06:22, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, I for one would certainly be happy to revisit this should the project grow to where this is necessary. It won't happen overnight. --Rs chen 7754 06:24, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Why make it a thing that has to be revisited in the first place? Why not just deal with it now? T C N7JM 06:26, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

With the current decline in editorship globally, this isn't a certainty, more of a "what-if", and wouldn't likely happen for a few years, anyway... when we change the rules in ACR at least every year anyway. Who knows, this whole thing might fall through and we might revert back to the old rules anyway. --Rs chen 7754 06:29, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I suppose you have a point. T C N7JM 06:31, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to limit it to one article at ACR and FAC per person. I respect the hell out of Imzadi1979 for what he's done by using the ACR machine pretty much nonstop since 2008 (because I wouldn't have the focus to write that much for that long, hell this is hard enough), but the ACR machine is gummed up and needs to be cleaned out. This can be construed as an invitation to IAR and just go to FAC with something if you're really confident in it and have written 20 FAs. –Fredddie ™ 06:51, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Most of our FACs have been automatic +1s though if it went to ACR, so I don't know if it would decrease workload... also, I generally find stuff that needs to be fixed in every ACR I review, so it's not exactly pointless. --Rs chen 7754 06:58, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I rarely do the automatic +1 because I think it makes our project look like a bunch of yes men. My opinion is "We had our look, now we should step back and let the community decide if it's FA-worthy." –Fredddie ™ 07:06, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Some reviewers do it, some don't. Having some do it keeps us from getting it prematurely archived due to no input, and the FAC delegates have said it's okay... I don't see a need to change our practice there, but anyway this is off topic.

I feel that adding FAC to the limit is unnecessary WP:CREEP, I don't see what this would solve... unless we're trying to discourage more experienced editors from using ACR, which I appreciate that some people want to do, but that's certainly not what all of us want to do; I always find non-trival things that need fixing in every ACR. I see the problem with having ACRs from "experienced" editors, or a bunch of ACRs where the only difference is the route number, dominating all of ACR, and that's why I've supported the per-editor limits, but I don't feel that more is necessary at this time - I feel it sends the wrong message. --Rs chen 7754 09:37, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, how would we handle removal discussions? I would suggest not counting those at all in limits, since if something's not up to standard, I wouldn't want a discussion to be held up over quota issues. --Rs chen 7754 07:01, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

One up, one down. Simple. –Fredddie ™ 07:06, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I would support a limit of one article per nominator, which would create a natural state of at least n−1 reviewers for every n nominations (assuming that each nominator is also a reviewer, which is generally the case). Regarding the proposed hard limit on the number of ACR spots – how would the queue awaiting ACR be handled? If all the available ACR spots are taken and there are also several articles queued up, then it would be quite discouraging to have a (pre-)nomination that definitely won't be looked at for ages. - Evad37 [talk] 10:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

My original theory was no queue, but a first come, first serve basis when the next slot opens. Mitch32^{(The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.)} 18:23, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Which would be problematic since some of us would be equipped to send another article to ACR within 5 minutes of one closing... which could lead to starvation. --Rs chen 7754 18:28, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Fairness quota maybe? Mitch32^{(The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.)} 20:29, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Instead of first-come, first-serve, for those editors who have nominated more than two articles to ACR, those editors who perform review at ACR have priority for the next open spot compared with those experienced editors who do not review.

Another idea is to limit the set of inexperienced editors to one article slot. I recognize this might be unfair, but it would allow us to better concentrate our reviewing and teaching capabilities on one newer editor at a time at ACR. V C 23:33, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I might support VC's first idea if we could somehow set more objective criteria for determining this. Otherwise, without an elected person running the process (and probably >1 person since that person wants to nominate stuff too) this could end in significant controversy. --Rs chen 7754 05:15, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

(tl;dr - scrap the A class reviews.) All over Wikipedia I see projects and proposals dying. Editor Retention's "Editor of the Week" is being proposed to be wound up. "Editor Review" has been shut down due to inactivity. The Articles for creation backlog is regularly approaching 3,000 queued submissions with no sign of reduction, AfDs seem to have fewer !votes and closing more as "no consensus", and I'm picking GA nominations off the queue that were posted last July. We need to recognise that Wikipedia is, if not in absolute decline, in a state of downsizing. So we should seriously consider binning anything that isn't taking traction and looks like a chore. I did kick around the idea of A class reviews for WikiProject Rock Music, but the idea never caught on, and WikiProject Albums don't go near them. I've recently pooh-poohed the entire FA process on my talk page, but in short I think we have too many FAs and we should instead focus our efforts on bringing all articles up to a baseline standard, even C-class would be an achievement. Can anyone here read Norwegian sources so Drammen Spiral can stop being a stub? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:20, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

A few questions/notes/ideas from someone with no experience at ACR:

Exactly how hard is it to review an article? I'm assuming it must be time-consuming if we have such a backlog.
Perhaps an "inexperienced editor" for the purposes of VC's idea could be someone with fewer than three ACRs/ten GAs?
As a non-content writer who will never send an article to ACR, I could always help out if you need a neutral party.
Obviously, we need more editors in HWY. But if a college student with a 4.0 GPA, perfectionist tendencies, and seven years of Wikipedia experience (me) can't review articles at ACR, how can we expect the new editors to be able to?
If we had a choice between 10 FAs and 250 B-Class articles for next year's goal, I think promoting articles to B-Class would be preferable.
Maybe editors shouldn't nominate articles unless they can commit to incorporating ideas given in reviews in a timely manner?
Again, enhanced WikiWork?
Quid pro quo?
Reduce the number of required reviews?
Send some articles (like those written by Imzadi) directly to FAC?

-happy 5214 11:43, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

You can take a look at User:Rschen7754/How to review road articles - I started reviewing at the age of 18-19 and it wasn't too bad. Of course you can give it a try on one of our current articles, and see how it goes. --Rs chen 7754 15:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Rschen's guide is pretty good as a reference. It's really no different than proofreading a classmate's paper. –Fredddie ™ 21:37, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Image checks and spotchecks are pretty straightforward too; spotchecks are hard to come by, yet they are a lot easier than a full review. --Rs chen 7754 02:46, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Random thought: what if we said that once you have over X FAs or As, you only need 2 supports? That might be a good compromise on parts of the issues discussed above... --Rs chen 7754 06:56, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and preferably one of them would have to be within the last 12 months... --Rs chen 7754 07:03, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I think we can reduce the number of supports for veteran editors who have had a lot of successful As and FAs. Dough 48 72 01:17, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Proposed ACR support scale (revised)
Time since editor's last successful ACR	Net supports	Spotcheck	Image review
Over 12 months	3	Needs	Needs
3–12 months	2	Maybe	Needs
Under 3 months	1	Maybe	Needs

How about a sliding scale that makes it easier to get articles through if you're successful? If it's been over a year since your last successful ACR, you would need three net supports and all the trimmings. Between 3 and 12 months, you'd only need two supports, the spotcheck, and maybe an image check. Under three months and you'd only need one support and a spotcheck. In order to prevent gaming the system, someone could scan the article to make sure it's a bona fide ACR nomination and not just thrown up immediately to get through with one support. –Fredddie ™ 01:39, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

The one issue I foresee is that articles pushed through on less support will be at a disadvantage at FAC. They'll have received fewer comments from "subject-matter experts" (SMEs), aka Us. That could mean one or more of us SMEs would need to do an in-depth review at FAC. Also, an image review is very easy and shouldn't be skipped; if it's skipped, it will need to be done at a subsequent FAC, but if the ACR has it, the FAC coordinators won't need to ping someone to do it there. Since an image is so easy (make sure everything has an appropriate license, and the captions are appropriate), it's a good step to leave in place. FAC does require a source review* and an image review for each nominate, but it doesn't require a spotcheck for every nomination. Rather, FAC coordinators ask for sport more like once every 18 months or so, so that might be a step that we could be minimizing.

*The source review, which we don't require, is a check of the reliability of the sources used as well as the consistency and completeness of the formatting of the citations to those sources. Pretty much, if an editor is using good sources cited with the same series of templates and filling in the same amount of information [at least author(s), title(s), publisher, location (where needed), page(s) or other in-source location(s), etc] then the editor will be good to go. Imzadi 1979 → 02:01, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Not having to review here would not necessarily preclude a reviewer from doing so at FAC. Would you be in favor of adding a source review at ACR? –Fredddie ™ 02:13, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

The points that I brought up the last time this was proposed were that a) it would require 6 people to sign off on an ACR (yes, some people do multiple reviews, but most of the time people don't) and b) I think it's a good thing for outside people to be checking the reliability of our sources. If we dropped something from ACR, it would resolve a, but not b.

As far as the table above, I'd support that, but with a minimum of 5 ACRs total or something like that, because the way the proposal is, someone could barely make it through an ACR and then post a second nomination and have it pass almost immediately. Also, I'd prefer that the ACR stay open for at least a week, so that people have the chance to glance through and veto it if something is seriously wrong. --Rs chen 7754 05:39, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe instead we could require one fewer support than the previous ACR instead of a hard count. That was more my intention anyway. –Fredddie ™ 13:06, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

What about something like this? If an editor has over 5 FAs (for articles tagged under HWY or one of its subprojects), with one of them within the past 12 months, only 2 reviews are required. Whether a spotcheck is done or not depends on if FAC will require one - they usually do once a year (this will be partly up to the nominator to keep track of). We would also add a 1 nomination per editor limit (grandfathering in Floydian's 2 reviews until one of them passes).

As a matter of perspective, this would result in ~~Forrest Highway passing immediately, and~~ both of the Ontario ones passing once the outstanding issues were resolved. (I suspect I-8 will need a spotcheck as I haven't been at FAC in over a year).

I realize that more radical proposals have been ... proposed above. However, not everyone is behind those proposals, and that reason alone would cause more harm than the proposals would solve. --Rs chen 7754 22:35, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I can support this proposal as this ensures one editor is not clogging up the venue with multiple articles and also provides more leniency for more experienced editors in an effort to allow more emphasis on new or unexperienced editors to be able to get feedback at ACR. Dough 48 72 22:46, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Backing off of my earlier proposal, and going off of your proposal, Rschen, how about this? If any editor has an ACR pass in the last 6-12 months (we can adjust when/if things move faster), only 2 supports are required. Having 5 FAs would waive this requirement entirely. I generally support the rest of your proposal. –Fredddie ™ 23:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure about this - what about some of our editors who have (for one reason or other) 5 FAs but haven't submitted something at FA for years? (there's multiple that fit into this category) Or the person with one FA trying to get a second - would two supports be good enough for them?

Would decreasing 5 FAs to 3 FAs be a better way to go about this? --Rs chen 7754 03:04, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Waive the three support requirement for editors with 3 FAs? Sure. –Fredddie ™ 03:20, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, but I mean without reducing the requirement to 2 supports for editors that have had a recent ACR. --Rs chen 7754 19:35, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Alternate idea

This is a bit out of the box, so if people don't like it, we can go back to the one discussed immediately above.

Instead of determining when an ACR closes based on the number and type of reviews, we determine it with a "motion to promote". People support based on whether or not they think the article has been reviewed thoroughly enough and meets the standard, whether or not they have actually reviewed the article. 4-5 net supports and 24-48 hours would be required to promote an article (net being that an oppose removes a support). The baseline would still be 3 reviews, IR, and spotcheck, but this would allow us to be flexible. Thoughts? --Rs chen 7754 21:31, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

No. We should be streamlining the process and not making it more confusing. For years we've said that drive-by supports are bad, and this idea would codify them as good? –Fredddie ™ 23:42, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I think we should act as an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week. But all the all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, or by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major affairs ..... buuut seriously, haven't you flipped the bicycle shed bit a little here? I mean, yeah it's alright doing little things like getting New York State Route 129 to GA, but the last article I took to GA is read on average by 100 times as many people [1] [2], so I think it might be worth picking your battles, downsizing the red tape, and keeping things simple if we're to attract any hope of new editors improving content on what, after all, is a niche topic. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 22:44, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

PS: I'm not a fan of this "spotchecking" stuff - when I review, I check absolutely every source going that I can, as it's far too easy to accidentally transcribe something and end up with incorrect facts in Wikipedia, and reviewing the source allows you to point out useful stuff that the nominator missed. And since factual accuracy is the hardest thing to spot and fix, I think it's the most important thing to check Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 22:51, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Clearly the bike shed should be mauve in color and not taupe like Rschen suggested.

–Fredddie ™ 22:48, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Mauve? Are you sure? It does mean changing the bulb! Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 22:51, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Alternate idea 2

ACR proposal

Do you currently have an article listed at ACR?
Yes	No
STOP! Please wait until the first ACR has finished!	Please proceed Check the next table for your requirements

Choose the column that applies to you
Three FAs	ACR activity in the last 12 months
Three FAs	Passed	None passed
2 net supports	2 net supports	3 net supports
Source review required for all ACRs
Image check required for all ACRs
Spot check required once per year		Spot check required

These two tables are a summary of what I like from the above discussion and how I think we should move forward. One change that was not discussed heavily above was starting to require source reviews for each ACR instead of spot checks. Spot checks would then be required once per year. I think the table is fairly self-explanatory. –Fredddie ™ 01:14, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I guess I'm not entirely sure what the source review is supposed to be - in all of my ACR reviews I do eyeball the references and make sure they are reliable, and I do check the formatting (but not thoroughly...) --Rs chen 7754 02:01, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Exactly what it means at FAC. –Fredddie ™ 02:03, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

So that's basically a more thorough version of what I'm doing, just using the words "source review" (doing a Ctrl+F on the FAC page, that's what it looks like...) If that's the case, then support. --Rs chen 7754 02:11, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah. Since we like to consider ACR as FAC-Lite, why not align our requirements with FAC's? –Fredddie ™ 02:16, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, a spot check is redundant to a source review. So we can probably just drop the spot check entirely. –Fredddie ™ 02:35, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not redundant, a source review has nothing to do with checking that the fact is actually in there, or plagiarism. --Rs chen 7754 03:44, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I can support this idea as it limits users to one ACR at a time to prevent overstuffing the queue and allow multiple editors to have ACR's at the same time, in addition to providing leniency to more experienced ACR/FAC nominators and allowing more focus on reviewing ACR's for editors less familiar with the process. Dough 48 72 02:28, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Question—should we add a subheading on the main ACR page for lists (which are being reviewed for promotion to AL-Class), and then possibly allow an exemption for editors to nominate one article and one list at a time? Perhaps that exemption is worded so that if there aren't already a certain number of lists (let's say 2 or 3) already nominated, that an editor with an article nominated can add a list to the queue without waiting? Otherwise, the proposal looks good to me. Imzadi 1979 → 06:38, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
- I think that lists and articles should be treated in the same vein in that editors are only allowed one ACR at a time, whether it be an article or a list. Dough 48 72 20:18, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
  - Agree that lists and articles should be treated the same, they're not moving through ACR any faster. --Rs chen 7754 21:25, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
I like the above table, with the exception of skipping the source/spot check. I find reviews generally focus on the prose content and not on double checking sources. Even with a handful of FAs, I routinely make the mistake of putting the wrong source on a piece of information, so those spotchecks are invaluable in my eyes. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 03:09, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
- So should we keep the spot check and make the source review mandatory once per year? –Fredddie™ 03:11, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
  - The spotcheck is what generally holds the reviews up the most. If we keep it as being required for every review, we need to take a really hard look at if we are actually going to do them. I've been doing ~~at least 90%~~ a large number of the spotchecks, if not more, because very few other people are doing them. Dropping the required number of sources to check to 10 didn't fix the problem either. --Rs chen 7754 04:11, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
    - Then by request only? –Fredddie™ 04:17, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
      - Perhaps it may have to be that way. While I see Ritchie's point above about factual accuracy, the truth is that we (both Wikipedia as a whole, and HWY) just don't have the manpower to double-check everyone else's work. Random checking of sources helps (you don't know which sources will be checked in advance, so you'd better do a good job on all of them!) but apparently nobody wants to check even 10 sources on every review except me, and I have to write articles too, and have a life outside of Wikimedia. I've made postings to WT:USRD, asking for spotchecks, that were completely ignored. So perhaps it has to be by request only then. Here's the stats on the spotchecks:

Editor	2013	2014
Rschen7754	12	6
TCN7JM	6	2
SounderBruce	1	0
Floydian	1	1
Imzadi1979	1	0
Scott5114	1	0
Fredddie	1	0
Dough4872	1	0

Apologies if I'm ranting, but this has been a frustration of mine for months - we seem to want a high-caliber ACR, but then nobody contributes to it, or at least most people are putting in much less than they expect to receive from others... I've been trying to pick up the slack, but there's only so much I can do, and I can't review my own articles either, so it's frustrating when I put in way more than I get in return. Rs chen 7754 04:50, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the reason a lot of editors are not willing to do spotchecks is the accessibility of sources as many articles that are sent to ACR have 95% of their sources being websites or newspaper articles that are not online or paywalled. That in essence leaves editors with few accessible sources to choose from and also may necessitate them contacting the nominator to provide them with sources that are not accessible. Dough 48 72 05:14, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

At least for all of my articles, 99% of my sources are either available online or I can send them to you via email. Maybe requiring nominators to say how to get the sources (Newsbank, email, available online, etc.) should be required in order to get a spotcheck, so there's no guessing game? --Rs chen 7754 05:25, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I think it would help if the nominator mentions how they can give other users access to sources for the spotcheck. Dough 48 72 05:26, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

To restart the discussion, I still support the proposal as it stands, making the spotcheck once a year. A spotcheck isn't going to catch every mistake, it's just to make sure that people don't have a systemic problem with plagiarism or verifiability. It is not a replacement for taking proper care when writing articles and using sources. --Rs chen 7754 22:38, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Bump; perhaps after a certain period of time we should just implement Fredddie's proposal? Unless other people want to comment? --Rs chen 7754 05:54, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I think we can go along with Fredddie's proposal. Dough 48 72 06:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Just noting that I have no objection to this or something along these lines - Evad37 [talk] 10:33, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm good with by request only. Fredddie's proposal seems to be along the right lines for moving forward. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 19:21, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ACR page updated

With the discussion now closed, the ACR page has been updated to include the new rules. I would appreciate it if someone would give the page a good copyedit so all the verb tenses agree and other fixes I may have missed. –Fredddie ™ 03:36, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Unreferenced Autopistas and autovías in Spain

Almost all the articles at Category:Autopistas and autovías in Spain have been unreferenced since their creation eight years ago. Is anyone able to find good references for these? - SimonP (talk) 23:23, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Glossary of road terms

I started Draft:Glossary of road transport terms. Feel free to fill in where you see fit. –Fredddie ™ 17:00, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Category:Named state highways in Oregon

Category:Named state highways in Oregon, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you.RevelationDirect (talk) 11:52, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata maps

Category:Infobox road maps for Wikidata migration I created this category yesterday so we know how many maps need to be migrated over to Wikidata. Ideally, there should be a bot that can do this for us, right? –Fredddie ™ 22:16, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Route template up for deletion

Note: {{HK route nav}} is up for deletion at TfD. The deletion nom statement is "Redundant to {{HK routes}}".

P.S. On an unrelated note... @Fredddie I happened to see Glossary of road transport terms. The topic isn't a specialty of mine, but thought I'd mention "bridleway" as a possible addition. It's a 'footpath' for equestrians (people on horseback); don't know if it's only used in UK or not. --146.199.151.33 (talk) 21:57, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

The glossary is for roads that cars could travel on, afaik.—CycloneIsaac (Talk) 21:48, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, only mentioned it as I saw footpath was a definition in there when I skimmed it. –146.199.151.33 (talk) 23:34, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Road signs: New Zealand

Hello, I´m file mover at commons. A ip has provided rename of some file, some were executed, others are flawed and have not been edited renaming. This I discovered and found that that are probably faulty. There are three information "code", "Rule" and "MoTSaM". And now we have a mess.

Please write which of the three pieces of information you want, "code", "Rule" or "MoTSaM". Kindly Regards --Jean11 (talk) 20:02, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Proposed additional parameters to tunnel infobox

I've suggested three additional parameters to Template:Infobox tunnel. It's talkpage is quiet and no comments have been made since the proposal in September 2014, so I'm asking for some comments/feedback to be added to Template talk:Infobox tunnel#Number of bores (tunnels). AHeneen (talk) 19:12, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Notability guidelines on intersections?

Hi, I have a question about the notability guidelines on street intersections... Are there any? Have any ever been formally composed? I realize that WP:GNG is the fundamental test for the notability of any subject, but are there any guides for what kinds of intersections are also likely to qualify as notable? Please advise. Thanks! KDS4444^Talk 21:29, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Intersections? I don't believe there are any notability guidelines for intersections. Now, we do have some articles on roundabouts and highway interchanges, but I don't know of any articles about street intersections. If there are, I think they would be known by another name; Times Square comes to mind. –Fredddie ™ 21:43, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

There's a few articles out there that I know of: Times Square as Fredddie said; Oxford Circus and quite a few in London; but some major ones are lacking articles entirely, like the scramble crossing at Hachiko Square/Shibuya Station in Tokyo. Sounder Bruce 21:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

That pretty much answers my question. I didn't figure that an "intersection" per se was going to qualify as a "thing" that might de facto be entitled to an article in the main namespace, but wanted to make sure there were no guidelines I was missing just in case. Thank you both! KDS4444^Talk 23:40, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Ontario Highway 48 GAN

Ontario Highway 48 is currently at GAN and is on hold for mostly minor issues. However, the nominator has been inactive for the past two months, and it would help if other editors would be willing to step in and fix the issues. The review is at Talk:Ontario Highway 48/GA1. Dough4872 01:46, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

National Highways India

Hi, I thought I'd flag up these edits National Highway 9 (India)(old numbering), National Highway 5 (India)(old numbering) and National Highway 214 (India). It looks like they are trying to do good edits, but partially changing articles labelled with old number to new ones (no source for that) has left them in an odd state (and with invalid markers hence I noticed). Not sure how to fix this one, so thought I'd falg up in case someone wanted a punt. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 21:49, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Can we nuke them and start over? I'm pretty sure all the national highway route markers exist, so you'd just have to remove the junk after the number to get a shield. –Fredddie ™ 21:54, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes if you cut it down to just the number it would 'solve' the image issue, but still leave them with ttile of one number and content of the other. It seams like an odd thing to have done anyway - just rename them (old numbering). Also I failed to find a source for the numbering change, or that they didn't have a new style of marker to make it clear new/old. It seams odd that they would swap everything around in a way you could not tell by a number which route was meant. i.e. 9 became 65, but 65 already existed. Also as some of the new numbers exist it would take an admin to do the moves/deletes to sort out. Really need a good source for the change to work out what to do. KylieTastic (talk) 12:18, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

This is a discussion for the editors over at WT:INRD. I agree that the situation is a mess in terms of our articles. Imzadi 1979 → 15:54, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

That is true, though given the activity of that project, I suspect that it would be met with crickets. --Rs chen 7754 20:43, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Project goals

There is a discussion at WT:USRD (linked above) about setting some project goals for 2016 and beyond. One of the suggestions was to move all of that project's goals to WP:HWY, which does not seem to have much support. Instead, there was support for creating a to-do list for HWY. So, I am going to start a list of things that need to be worked on. This is by no means comprehensive, so feel free to add some ideas. –Fredddie ™ 19:36, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Coordination: Work with other wikis to get reliable sources; Import and translate articles from other wikis (Is this a good practice?)

Article body: Set up an article naming guideline similar to WP:USSH; Introduce the "big three" sections

Templates: Set up {{Infobox road}} subtemplates and {{Jct}} road data modules for every country

Graphics: Find official specifications (colors and measured drawings) and create SVG route markers; Scour Flickr and other sources for good road photos

Junction lists: Find official route logs or analogues; Set up {{Jctint}} as needed; Convert junction lists from other wikis to RJL format

Duplicate parameters in road articles

it would be great if someone could fix the duplicate parameter errors in

Interstate 270 (Ohio) (duplicate mile= parameters)
Interstate 84 in Connecticut (duplicate name1=, exit=, and type=)
New York State Route 27 (duplicate name1=, city1=, dir1=)
New Brunswick Route 16 (duplicate junction=, route=, type=)

you can see the errors if you open the pages in edit mode, and press preview. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 15:50, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Done using your Duplicate finder tool. –Fredddie ™ 16:44, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

great, three more for you :)

Frietjes (talk) 16:31, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Done LJ ↗ 19:32, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

awesome, here are some more with duplicate dir :)

Georgia State Route 5

Idaho State Highway 162

Frietjes (talk) 14:48, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Fixed GA, ID, KY, SD, WI. LJ ↗ 11:41, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

German highway interchanges

I've edited and translated a badly written article about Kreuz Stuttgart today and then I've seen the note on the talk page about "deleting all". Why is this? Is there a possibility that the projectHighways group can protect the articles about German interchanges from deleting? I know they are all written in "more german than english", but I'am willing to "new-translate" these from next year on. But only with protection not to be deleted shortly after. Can you help me? --Chandler321 (talk) 13:46, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

These aren't really considered notable. There was a group deletion of many of them, but some articles have been recreated since then. Even now, most of those recreations are being deleted via WP:PROD or WP:AFD one at a time. Imzadi 1979 → 19:52, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Oppose all deletions: I disagree with all of the proposed deletions. The reasons usually given for them are "Non-notable interchange, just like thousands of others" and/or "Just having a name imparts no presumption of notability when every German interchange has a name". Neither of these reasons is valid.

As to the first, the articles are about an Autobahn interchange, and not merely about an intersection between cul-de-sacs in a village. Most, if not all, of the articles are also about an interchange between two or more Autobahns, not merely between an Autobahn and some other form of highway or road. The German Autobahn network is the apex of Germany's road system, is probably the most important such network in Europe, and has many links with equivalent motorway systems in neighbouring countries. The fact that the network has many named interchanges is a reflection of its large size and very substantial importance. The named Autobahn interchanges are the equivalent of Germany's Hauptbahnhöfe (main railway stations). There are more than 100 Hauptbahnhöfe in Germany, and English Wikipedia has a standalone article about every single one of them. So why should there be no (or almost no) standalone articles in English Wikipedia about Germany's Autobahn interchanges? I have not seen an answer to this question from any of the proponents of deletion in any of the "articles for deletion" discussions.

As to the second, the fact is that Germany's highway authorities have chosen to give a name to each of these Autobahn intersections, so as to indicate their importance. To say that there should not be standalone articles about them, even though they have been given official names, is therefore an example of systemic bias, which is contrary to English Wikipedia policy. Perhaps more importantly, the names are widely used, including by independent publishers of maps (eg Google maps). That fact alone suggests that there is a presumption of notability for all of them (see Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features)#Roadways). Indeed, it seems to me that a useful rule of thumb as to the notability of highway interchanges (in any country, not just Germany) would be that an interchange is presumed to be notable if it has an official name used by at least one substantial independent map publisher, and otherwise is presumed to be not notable.

Proponents of deletion might argue that even if the interchanges are technically notable, the vast majority of them are not important enough to justify a standalone article in English Wikipedia. But as both German and Dutch Wikipedias each have about 200 such standalone articles, such an argument would be just another example of systemic bias. English Wikipedia is used for many purposes. I have created a large number of English Wikipedia articles about railway stations, and one of the most visited of them is the one about the railway station at Rome Airport, which is quite small and not very interesting in an architectural or operational sense. That's an indication that many users of Wikipedia use it to help them with their travels by providing information about important transport facilities, and I have no doubt that the standalone articles in German and Dutch Wikipedia about Autobahn interchanges in Germany are often used for that purpose, particularly as most of them include a good map of the interchange. Many users of German Autobahns, myself included, speak English better than they speak German or Dutch. Why should such people who want to use Wikipedia to help them navigate this internationally vital highway network be forced by systemic bias on English Wikipedia to use the German and Dutch language articles instead of one in English that various editors are happy to create for them?

And no, the answer to this question is not that "Wikipedia is not a travel guide". The articles about the Autobahn intersections are gazetteer-type articles, and Wikipedia "also functions as a gazetteer; therefore, geographical features meeting Wikipedia's General notability guideline (GNG) are presumed ... to be notable." Bahnfrend (talk) 07:36, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Bahnfrend, you've just made my point. None of these interchanges meet WP:GNG, therefore they do not meet the Wikipedia Gazetteer requirement. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 14:31, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Response: This is yet another example of a rationale that simply isn't valid. All of these interchanges have names, and are referred to as such in reliable independent sources, eg google maps. They therefore meet WP:NRV and it follows that they also meet WP:GNG. They are also tailor made to the location, and to the configuration of the adjoining Autobahns, and therefore warrant standalone articles. Bahnfrend (talk) 00:52, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

There is a dramatic difference between a railway station and a highway interchange. People spend significant amounts of time in railway stations, and they have architectural features, amenities, offer various services, and often have well documented histories. On the other hand, people travel at highway speed through interchanges, usually in a matter of seconds, and they are utterly generic, cookie cutter features of modern highways worldwide. I oppose articles on all but the most unique of highway interchanges. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 16:43, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Response: Again, this rationale simply isn't valid, for two reasons. First, what's the difference between what you describe as "the most unique highway interchanges" and the other ones? Answer: it's impossible to apply your criterion easily and objectively. On the other hand, the rule of thumb I have suggested is objective, very easy to apply, and fully consistent with WP:NRV. Secondly, I live almost opposite a railway station on the Transperth suburban network. The station consists of nothing more than two platforms, one on each side of the tracks, and a bus shelter, ticket machines and timetable information on each platform. The station has no points (switches), staff or any other facilities. In every sense, it is less significant than the subjects of every single one of the German Autobahn interchange articles proposed for deletion. Yet, like every single station on the Transperth network, and like many similar stations in Anglophone cities worldwide, it has a standalone Wikipedia article, which in this particular case was created more than 10 years ago and has never been proposed for deletion. Which just goes to show that the real problem here is that the proponents of deletion of German Autobahn interchange articles are affected by systemic bias against German-focused topics, and are therefore simply not willing to accept that reliable independent sources confirm that the operators and users of German Autobahns regard them (and there are only about 200 of them) as significant enough engineering and architectural features and transport facilities to warrant their being given official names. Bahnfrend (talk) 00:52, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

I would say that 99% of highway interchanges are not notable enough for individual articles as most of them are ordinary diamond, trumpet, cloverleaf etc. configurations and any mentions can be made in the article about the highway. Usually the only interchanges that are notable for articles are the more complex stack or Spaghetti Junction interchanges that serve as a junction between two or more freeways and often are named. Dough4872 18:20, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Response: Yet again, this rationale is not valid. First, if you actually looked at these articles, you would see that few, if any, of them are about stock standard examples of the interchange types you mention, and that all of them are junctions between two or more Autobahnen. Secondly, an article about an individual autobahn would become inappropriately long and complex if there were detailed mention in the article of each and every one of its named interchanges. Bahnfrend (talk) 00:52, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Even if an interchange is between two or more freeways and has a unique design, it needs enough independent sources and information to prove the interchange is important as its own feature and cannot simply be covered in the highway article. Also, having a name doesn't automatically make an interchange notable as the Pennsylvania Turnpike has dozens of simple trumpet interchanges that are named. Dough4872 02:14, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Response: I disagree. If an interchange between two or more freeways is given an official name, it becomes a geographical feature like a named mountain peak or river. If it is then referred to by name in maps published by reliable independent publishers, then it should be treated like a named mountain peak or river, ie "Named natural features are often notable, provided information beyond statistics and coordinates is known to exist." (WP:GEOLAND). In the case of the German Autobahn interchange articles, it is clear from the German Wikipedia articles that are being translated into the English Wikipedia articles, it is clear that such information is known to exist; there just isn't the same extent of citation of sources as you would find in an English Wikipedia article created from scratch (see my response below to Fredddie for further comment on that issue). Bahnfrend (talk) 06:46, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

MacArthur Maze is an example of an article about an interchange which is actually notable. It has received significant coverage in many independent, reliable sources going back decades, and there are many references in the article. That type of reference is completely lacking in these routine German interchange articles. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:04, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Response: Your argument here is contradicted by WP:NEXIST. If a subject is notable, then the fact that the article about it is not well referenced is not a reason for deletion, especially where the subject matter is located outside the Anglosphere and therefore not likely to be covered extensively in English language sources. Bahnfrend (talk) 00:52, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

What Cullen is saying that if they are truly notable and had significant coverage in Germany, these articles would have these references on the German Wikipedia. de:Kreuz Stuttgart has one reference. How does that demonstrate notability and significant coverage? –Fredddie ™ 04:36, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Response: You're confusing notability of the subject matter with verifiability of the content of the article. These are two different issues. In the case of Kreuz Chemnitz, notability can be confirmed by a Google maps search (Google maps is a clearly independent reliable source). If the subject matter is notable, then there can be an article about it. As far as verifiability of content is concerned, a lack of sources and references is a recognised problem with translation of German Wikipedia articles into English, because German Wikipedia articles, although "heavily guarded for accuracy", are typically much less comprehensively sourced and referenced than English Wikipedia articles created from scratch. See Wikipedia:Translation/German/Translation advice#Content issues. The solution to this problem is not to delete the whole article, but, rather, either to be pragmatic and leave the content in the article as is (on the basis that German Wikipedia is generally pretty accurate), or be fundamentalist (and thereby largely defeat the purpose of translating the article in the first place) and delete the unsourced content, but not the whole article. Bahnfrend (talk) 05:59, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

New thread: It seems to me that the real problem thrown up by this debate is that English Wikipedia does not have adequate guidelines for notability of "roadways". According to WP:GEOROAD:

"International road networks (such as the International E-road network), Interstate, national, state and provincial highways are typically notable. Topic notability for county roads, regional roads (such as Ireland's regional roads), local roads and motorway service areas may vary, and are presumed to be notable if they have been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable and independent of the subject."

By contrast, this is the equivalent notability statement from German Wikipedia (translated into English):

"Transport routes and structures

of nationally influential importance, for example an important historical trade route
transport interchanges
- motorway junctions and triangles are notable if they include at least two nationally important Autobahns (in Germany mostly Autobahns with one- or two-digit Autobahn numbers) or have other outstanding features such as design or history.
pioneering works in transport technology
Autobahns and highways of the next highest category including (depending upon the country concerned, eg national or federal highways), roads built similarly to Autobahns, international connections (of national significance, not "local border traffic") or a part of a continental road system.
airfields with an ICAO code"

As can be seen, this statement expressly provides for notability of certain types of interchanges, and the German Wikipedia articles about Autobahn interchanges have been written on that basis. At the moment, English Wikipedia has no guidelines as to the notability of highway interchanges, but it seems to be accepted that at least some of them are notable. So English Wikipedia should have a similar guideline. I would suggest an amalgam of the German Wikipedia guideline and the one I have suggested above, ie something like "Motorway junctions between at least two motorways, or a motorway and another road notable in itself, are also typically notable, especially if the junction has an official name used by reliable independent map publishers to refer to it." Bahnfrend (talk) 06:46, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Oppose any such English Wikipedia guideline. The German speakers can adopt their own guidelines, as their project is independent of ours. I am completely in favor of having articles on this Wikipedia about any highway interchange, or any other topic, which has received significant coverage in reliable, independent sources in any language. Consider MacArthur Maze as a good example of an acceptable, well-referenced article about a notable interchange. I drive all over the freeways of Northern California every day, different routes each day, and there are several hundred utterly routine cloverleafs that I might navigate on any given day. The notion that they are notable just by existing and appearing on a published map is bizarre to me. By that standard, every amateur baseball diamond and parking lot in the United States is notable. My own house is notable, since Google Maps includes it and even includes a photo of it. I do not think so. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:08, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Response: Your comments indicate only two things. First, you haven't read and understood my proposal correctly. If you had, you would be aware that I am not proposing that interchanges or peoples' houses be presumed to be notable just by existing and appearing on a published map. I am suggesting such a presumption only for interchanges between freeways, or between a freeway and a notable road. In other words, interchanges between highways each notable enough to have an English Wikipedia article of their own. Secondly, neither you nor any of the other proponents of deletion of the German Autobahn articles has responded to my contention that the proposed deletions are examples of systemic bias. That lack of response speaks volumes. I have just looked at all of the 12 articles in Category:Road interchanges in California, which includes MacArthur Maze. With only two exceptions, those articles have only 3 to 6 references, and are generally less substantial than the articles in German Wikipedia about German Autobahn intersections. Yet only one of them is presently proposed for deletion, and it looks like that proposal will fail, mainly because, as is acknowledged on the deletion discussion page, the interchange in question is in California, not Germany. Of the remaining two articles, one of them is referenced mainly to a source that is not independent (ie the California Department of Transportation), and the other one, MacArthur Maze, has no map, and is referenced almost exclusively to local newspapers, one of which is so obscure that its website looks like an amateur effort circa 2001. So if your views are correct, all of these articles should probably be deleted, and yet you are actually putting forward MacArthur Maze as an example of an article about a notable subject. Bahnfrend (talk) 10:52, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Why should such people who want to use Wikipedia to help them navigate this internationally vital highway network - And there's the problem, right there. Wikipedia is not a travel guide. Many interchanges are notable. However an interchange that 1. links two roads and 2. is named is not notable just because of points 1. and 2. Wikipedia is a gazetteer, and thus the components of road networks are considered as close to 'automatically notable' as it's possible to be - for national and state/provincial routes, with all others having to pass GNG per long-existing WP:CONSENSUS. I'll note that the proposal above is actually phrased where a strict reading would consider it stricter in that sense, but in all it appears to be written solely because it's believed interchangs should be notable for being interchanges. There's a big, sprawling interchange about two hours east of here between two Interstates; it's in the middle of nowhere and has no cultural or historical value whatsoever, either as an encyclopedic topic or as something a gazzeteer would cover. And yet this would make it "something that Needs An Article" for no other reason than Because It Is There. I'm the first to reflect that the ever-sharpening drumbeat of "we need to tighten notability standards (and thus toss out bunches of crufty articles)" is the greatest threat to Wikipedia, but this is something that I cannot support. That said, this Autobahn-interchange issue is exactly the sort of thing that lists are intended for - collections of information that as a group can pass notability but individually do not. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 17:25, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Despite the fact that English Wikipedia has no guidelines for notability of "roadways" the article is notable to hard guidelines in German Wikipedia. And somewhere here I've read that almost every notable article in another language IS also notable for English Wikipedia. If this is not enough, note this:

German highways called Autobahn are the biggest kind of roads Germany has and one of the most important transport system not only in Germany, but in whole Europe
"Highway interchanges" mean only interchanges between two or more highway (Autobahn) and not the one with smaller kind of streets, so only "Kreuz" and "Dreieck" are important
There are only a few named interchanges between two Autobahnen. Its importancy often lays in the ammount of traffic, this is often around 100.000 cars a day
German highway interchanges between two Autobahnen often have a long and interesting history because they are almost 100 years old and for the newer ones also a designer put in his architectural ideas and some have also a bigger service station (motorway servcie area or rest stop) nearby so also arcitectural and service matters are fulfilled (as for railway stations)

If you still think there is no notability to German highway interchanges for a standalone article, please do not delete the articles but put them into the matching highway article. Thanks --Chandler321 (talk) 09:44, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Merger Discussion

Formal request has been received to merge articles: the Blacks Harbour to Grand Manan Island Ferry article into the Coastal Transport Limited article; dated: 2015. Proposer's Rationale: There is significant overlap, and the latter is far more informative and factual. >>>The discussion is here<<<. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 17:18, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia Maps

Hello all, I hope everyone has seen the latest update on Maps. Please read here. We are completing 15 years of Wikipedia. Maps in Wikipedia needs an update. Currently T125126 is the blocker now. Please help to bring beautiful maps in Wikipedia. This will help to have good maps in Highway articles -- naveenpf (talk) 12:37, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Beyond the mw:Maps project just being made available to en.wikipedia, we actually need to have support for our KML files for them to be useful (support for KML and other layers is noted at mw:Maps/Future Plans, but doesn't seem to be a priority) - Evad37 [talk] 13:11, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

For the many countries other than US, who has not made any KML mapping, geoJSON can be copied from OSM. KML should not be a show stopper for implementing Maps in Wikipedia-- naveenpf (talk) 13:20, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I didn't meant to imply that it would be a "show stopper", just that it would be much more useful if it could use the existing KML files. - Evad37 [talk] 13:53, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Come to think of it, though, how are geoJSON files going to be stored? Doesn't look like Commons would (currently) support geoJSON, so it would probably need to be transcluded from a template subpage like KML is - Evad37 [talk] 14:01, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

That we should try here [3] and see how will be for highway mapping -- naveenpf (talk) 15:11, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I tried to answer maps questions raised above in this discusssion. Let me know. --Yurik (talk) 17:39, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Notability of roads

Stumbled across this. Your WikiProject doesn't seem to have any notability criteria mentioned on the project page. How do you decide if it's notable? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:14, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

See the Roadways section of WP:NGEO - Evad37 [talk] 13:39, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Helpful, thanks. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:15, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Template:OHint

Olive Green, Ohio existed for a while as an article before being moved in January to Olive Green, Noble County, Ohio, because there's also an Olive Green, Delaware County, Ohio. However, the mover forgot to convert it into a disambiguation page, so the links remained until just now, when I converted it. I've fixed all the links except for the one in Ohio State Route 61, which links to the disambiguation page via the following code:

{{OHint

|mile=5.45
|road={{jct|state=OH|SR|521|city1=Delaware|city2=Olive Green}}

}}

How do I fix the link? Merely supplying the rest of the name, i.e. |city2=Olive Green, Delaware County}}, fixes the link, but the displayed text is Delaware, Olive Green, Delaware County instead of the correct Delaware, Olive Green. The template is able to link county names without displaying them, but only in the "township" field (all Ohio township articles include the county in their names), and using |township= would move Olive Green over to another column, if I understand rightly. There's absolutely no documentation for {{OHint}}, so I can't figure out anything. Nyttend (talk) 03:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

This is more of a {{Jct}} problem than an {{OHint}} problem. On Ohio State Route 61, I changed |city2= to |location2= because location# lets you use standard wikilinks (or no link at all), while city# always uses the <city>, <state> format that is common to U.S. cities. {{Jct}} using the <city>, <state> format with the city# parameter only applies to U.S. articles. See: {{Jct|country=GBR|M|1|city1=London}} →

M1 – London –Fredddie ™ 04:24, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Commons project?

I'm thinking of setting up a project page for HWY on Commons, similar to c:COM:USRD. It would be a place to store resources, such as licensing (c:COM:USRD/L). Thoughts? --Rs chen 7754 20:29, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Now done, see c:COM:HWY. --Rs chen 7754 07:43, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

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We need a bot that creates redirects

The bot doesn't need to be continuous; it only needs to act once, however, it needs to do a lot.

The redirects it creates will be, for example, from "MA 150" and "MA-150" to "Massachusetts Route 150". The same will be done for every US state and Canadian province. (Note that different states have different formats, e.g. New York uses "New York State Route 23".) If the page already exists (if a redirect has already been created there, or, less commonly, for something like CA-125, which has a meaning unrelated to roads), the bot does nothing. If the page it would redirect to doesn't exist (for example, MA 200, which is not an existing route), the bot does nothing. If the page it would redirect to is a redirect page (for example, Massachusetts Route 108, which redirects to New Hampshire Route 108), the bot would redirect to the final target to avoid a double redirect. HotdogPi 14:30, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

@HotdogPi: you might want to mention this over at WT:USRD since that project deals with the highways in the US. Imzadi 1979 → 04:52, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Potential changes at FAC

There is a proposal at WT:FAC#FAC nom preparedness to potentially require a Peer Review or A-Class Review before nomination. The idea is that would the change streamline the reviews at FAC to push articles through there faster by requiring more of the advance prep work to be done before an FAC was initiated. Such a change would mean revitalizing and using WP:HWY/ACR more in the future. Imzadi 1979 → 20:59, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Do we feel that the current state of ACR is working? The changes we made in early/late/mid 2014-2015 (I forget exactly when) did reduce the backlog... by almost killing ACR entirely, though it also may have been due to a lot of inactivity.

Personally, I feel that the changes may have overcomplicated ACR. I would suggest going back to the net 4 votes as the only requirement, but the votes are based on if we feel the article has been reviewed enough (this would allow drive-by votes). --Rs chen 7754 00:29, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Highway list navigation box

There are List of highways numbered x, and many contain a navigation box at the end that allows the reader to navigate to the prior or next numbered highway. I added about 30 missing boxes, so now every list from 1 to 110 currently has one. Then I realized that there are lists for highways 1A, 1B, etc. So should the nav box go from 1 to 2, or should it go from 1 to 1A (following all the highways that exist in the category List of roads sharing the same title? MB 19:43, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

same named roads

If there are same named roads, which is used in a article's name — parentheses or comma? --ㅂㄱㅇ (talk) 09:23, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Typically parentheses are used, but that doesn't mean commas are never used. –Fredddie ™ 20:47, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Attached KML#Proposal: Use Wikidata and new module

You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Attached KML#Proposal: Use Wikidata and new module. Evad37 [talk] 12:36, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Disambiguator in road articles

Something that I've always found odd - why are articles "xxx road" not "xxx (road)"? Elsewhere, we have Tommy (album) and Bones (TV series), so why not here? Reliable sources like Highways England, The National Trust and BBC News don't call the A303 road the "A303 road", just the "A303". Doing a Google News and Google Books search (my litmus test for article names) seems to confirm my hypothesis - after all, Tom Fort didn't call his book "The A303 road - Highway to the Sun"! I realise "it ain't broke so don't fit it" is a reasonable counter-argument, except Google picks up our article titles and treats them as gospel, which gives you "A303 road - road in England". Sounds like an oxymoron, and having a title that doesn't match all the search hits you get back outside of here is .... odd. What should we do? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 20:31, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Here we use article titles of the format M-28 (Michigan highway) because the name of the highway in Michigan is just "M-28". I see no reason why you couldn't do the same, Ritchie333 other than institutional inertia about changing the titles. Imzadi 1979 → 20:43, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you that we can do better. Since there are so many A1s, for instance, would A1 (Great Britain road) or A1 (Austria motorway) be better than A1 road (Great Britain) and A1 motorway (Austria), respectively? That would match the Michigan and Kansas approach as mentioned above. –Fredddie ™ 20:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

They do a little more than match just those, they pretty much match the rest of the encyclopedia. (WP:AT doesn't say you must disambiguate in brackets but we do unless common sense tells us otherwise). For me, search engine support is the crucial argument, as it seems to recognise disambiguator brackets and parse them out (since they are so prevalent. To touch on my earlier example, a Google search for "tommy the who" brings up "Tommy" not "Tommy (album)". So in a very real sense it's "broken". The only nitpick I have with Fredddie's argument is the examples look gramatically incorrect. Also, is the major road that goes over the Millau Viaduct "A75 (French motorway)", "A75 (Autoroute)" or "A75 (French autoroute)"? We need to sort the edge cases out first before we poke a suitable bot operator to do the dirty work. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 21:03, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not ideal, but is A1 (British road) any better? –Fredddie ™ 21:17, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

You are straying onto my territory here! I have a few photos on Commons featuring the A75 autoroute. As a regular user I refer to it in conversation, and it always called the A75 autoroute, that is the English name. I don't see that any disambiguation is needed- there is only one and were Québec to build one A75 autoroute (Québec) would be quite adequate. I am happy with A1 autoroute (France), A1 autoroute (Belgian) though we call it A1 motorway (Belgium), I have no experience of this road. If a bot is set to work to change article titles do make it cross-wiki to cover all my commons inter-wiki links.

Moving to the A1 in North London, a native may call it the A1 road in North London so A1 road does make sense - ( though with the political effects of the Brexit advisory referendum we may need to disamb it to A1 road (England) as it does become the A8 road (Scotland) after crossing the proposed international border) .

The A1(T) A1 trunk is what my fathers generation would have called it and large sections are called the A1(M) to note their motorway status, calling that the A1(M)(England) seems to be plain stupid. While some degrees of rationalisation should be considered- we should consider the average user, and making a change for 'consistency' that makes WP more inaccessible seems wrong.ClemRutter (talk) 08:04, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

@ClemRutter: I've never heard a reliable source use "xxx road". Listen to Radio 2's traffic bulletin (is the lovely Sally Boazman still doing it?) any day and listen, for a good example. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:12, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Well that's consistent with Nirvana (British band), so there is precedent for doing it that way, I guess. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 21:25, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

It may be worthwhile to consult both WP:HWY/C and d:Wikidata:WikiProject Roads/Europe to see what is used. I'm doing the labels and descriptions for Wikidata right now... and it doesn't seem like there's much consistency out there. --Rs chen 7754 03:35, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Redirects are cheap, they say. Wouldn't they help the search engine issue? Let's assume we went with "A1 (British road)" as the title. If we also created redirects at "A1 (Great Britain road)", etc, and even if they weren't ideal grammatically, wouldn't the various SEs pick up on them and help readers find the actual article? As for the French example, we could create all three and gain the ability to find the article regardless of the title we actually use.

I know for Michigan, we have redirects from a handful of different title schemes, including: M-28 (MI), M-28 (Michigan), MI 28, and Michigan State Highway 28. Imzadi 1979 → 05:44, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

I think that's a bit of a red herring; after all, Sega Megadrive is a perfectly serviceable redirect to Sega Genesis, but I don't fancy anyone's chances of switching that to the other way round. We need to reach a consensus otherwise people will argue about it endlessly. Perhaps a note at the village pump and various MOS pages will draw some more views in. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 07:58, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. A well-drafted and well-advertised RFC would get enough people involved to make an informed decision. It should easily avoid a debacle like WP:SRNC USRD had ten years ago. Creating redirect pages (like this: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Redirects/Iowa) for the rest of the world would help, too. –Fredddie ™ 11:29, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

So when we start an RFC about this, we need to decide which format is preferred (assuming the road is called A1):

A1 <road> (<location>) aka no change
A1 (<location> <road>) example "A1 (Great Britain road)"
A1 (<adjective> <road>) example "A1 (British road)"

Did I miss anything? –Fredddie ™ 00:01, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Shouldn't example #2 say "A1 (Great Britain road)"? -- LJ ↗ 05:04, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

You're right. Edited to say that. –Fredddie ™ 05:12, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but is there any reason not to use "A1 (<location>)" for the vast majority of cases, and only providing further disambiguation (in whichever of the above formats) for the rare cases, if any, that require it? - Evad37 [talk] 05:53, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

When USRD went through SRNC a decade ago, Kansas and Michigan were judged to be exceptions to the rule promulgated for the rest of the states. In that exception, "<state> highway" was used as a disambiguation term because it was judged that something like "M-28 (Michigan)" was too ambiguous because there was no clue what the article was about to lay people. It was also noted at that time that the highway is named just "M-28", so "M-28 highway (Michigan), while it would be just as clear as to what and where the subject is, wouldn't be accurate. Imzadi 1979 → 06:18, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon

There are plenty of Africa road stubs that would qualify - see WP:HWY/C for a list. Unlike many Wikipedia contests, there is a cash prize. --Rs chen 7754 01:04, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Africa challenges

There are a couple challenges related to improving African articles that may be of interest to WP:HWY editors.

The Africa Destubathon which offers cash prizes in the form of Amazon.com vouchers to those who improve the most articles
The 10,000 Challenge which is a push to improve 10,000 African articles

With 1,212 articles and an average WikiWork of 5.97 (nearly all stubs), we have plenty of opportunities to improve African road articles. –Fredddie ™ 17:21, 15 October 2016 (UTC)