Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways/United Kingdom/Archive 1
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
Standardise route boxes for motorway articles
Hi and thanks for setting up this project. I note your open task and wanted to discuss it before it gets rolled out. The main format used (partly through my original set up expansions or amendments) and partly through what was there before is more like M2 motorway, A500 road which matches the road signs better. I had intended to go through and remove all colour to make them more accessible which seems to be a real requirement here. Regan123 18:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- I was the one who added most of them in the first place, but looking at them now, they're a real accessibility nightmare. M62 motorway's routebox, a neutral gray, looks better than M2 motorway's blue header. Will (We're flying the flag all over the world) 19:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- That's fine with me to change. I used italics and bold as opposed to colour where possible for emphasis. I would also prefer to have the road number at the end as this matches the signs better (this is not trying to be travel guide) but also being in the context of UK road signage. I have also amended my comments slightly above. --Regan123 20:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Seems like a good idea to me. One thing that confuses me, which I think should be clarified, is (for example M5_motorway J31 or M32 motorway J3) where there are, in effect, two exits at one junction. At present, we separate it with a black line, and make rowspan of the J3 tag 2. Should be so a similar thing with the new more accessible version? Ian¹³/t 16:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- I set them that way to distinguish between the non motorway and motorway stretches. If there is a better way to go, then I am happy to go with it. Regan123 19:39, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- Seems like a good idea to me. One thing that confuses me, which I think should be clarified, is (for example M5_motorway J31 or M32 motorway J3) where there are, in effect, two exits at one junction. At present, we separate it with a black line, and make rowspan of the J3 tag 2. Should be so a similar thing with the new more accessible version? Ian¹³/t 16:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- That's fine with me to change. I used italics and bold as opposed to colour where possible for emphasis. I would also prefer to have the road number at the end as this matches the signs better (this is not trying to be travel guide) but also being in the context of UK road signage. I have also amended my comments slightly above. --Regan123 20:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Coordinates
Please see Talk:M6 motorway#Coordinates for a discussion of the use of coordinates in motorway route tables. Andy Mabbett 21:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- And please see M62 motorway for use of coordinates in the route template; noting the final external link on the page (usng {{kml}}, to a service which passes the coordinates to Google maps, so that they can be plotted as "push-pins". Perhaps this project could make adding coordinates (using {{coord}} to other motorway route templates one if its activities? Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 10:38, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
References / Short Article Clean-up
WP:SACU has a number of your motorway articles in its first few sets of articles (it's alphabetical, and A-roads come early). I've cobbled together references for those in my sets. If you have preferred way of adding references or maps to these short roadway articles (ideally, one no more difficult than Google Maps -- there are a lot of these to be done...) -- I'd love to know about them. Additionally, several folks in WP:SACU have suggested that some sort of reference template for roadway map links might be in order; I haven't the background for such an undertaking, but figure I'd mention it here in case someone here might be thinking similarly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Courier (talk • contribs) 14:08, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Junction lists and IRC channel
Hello from across the pond! I thought I might want to bring up that the U.S. project put some discussion into it and came up with a standard for exit lists on our freeways. You might want to take a look at it and see if it's adaptable for British purposes. It's at WP:ELG.
Also, many Wikipedia road enthusiasts congregate in the #wikipedia-en-roads
channel on the Freenode IRC network. The clientèle is mainly Americans, but there's a few Canadians too. We'd be happy to have anyone interested in roads to join in. Thanks! —Scott5114↗ 19:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
UK Roads/UK Transport WikiProject
Id like to suggest that a UK Roads WikiProject be set up as an expansion of the current motorways wikproject and similar to US roads WikiProject. This would help have a uniform articles through out the UK road systems and also a point for people to combine there efforts and consensus to more easily achieved. For the time being i would like to see what support there is for this before making an official proposal? Seddon69 22:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
- I'm okay with the the scope being expanded to A Roads, as the Motorway project already covers several roads. Will (talk) 22:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
- My suggegstion would be to make WP:UKRD an umbrella project as WP:USRD started. Then expand from there. --Son 12:58, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I would support an overall roads project. We've got some standardisation going, but only through a few users. Also, many of the articles are rehashed SABRE entries which is not necessarily encyclopaedic. Regan123 15:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Merging
We've got a few articles on former/planned motorways that could be merged. I would suggest that M16 motorway becomes part of the M25 motorway article, the M15 motorway becomes part of the A406 road and the M64 motorway goes into A50 road. They are short stubs, that are unlikely to grow and/or they contain a lot of duplicate information that is inherently linked.
I would also like to merge M63 motorway into M60 motorway and create a more comprehensive history. We risk duplication of effort at the moment. Regan123 15:34, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Importance scale
As I've just installed the parameter, we need an importance scale. I propose this:
- Top - The most major routes in the country. Reserved only for the M1, A1, M25, M4, and M6.
- High - other major routes. One digit numbers, with the exception of: M2, M20, M42, M62.
- Mid - Ax(M) roads, two digit motorways and A-roads, major London roads such as Strand.
- Low - service stations, local routes.
Objections? Will (talk) 21:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
- In general for the roads I don't have a problem with that, but there will always be variations! And I thought I put the param in yesterday. Mustn't have got it right. Regan123 (talk) 21:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
- Exactly, there will be variations, e.g. M2/M20. Should be a general guide, though. Will (talk) 21:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
- OK. Been through the A1xxx roads and got the overwhelming majority. Couple I would like others to assess though, in light of comments elsewhere.Regan123 (talk) 15:17, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
- Now completed the A5xx articles. Could someone else look at the remaining A1xx and A2xx ones as I've edited those a bit and am worried about a COI. Regan123 (talk) 00:44, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
- OK. Been through the A1xxx roads and got the overwhelming majority. Couple I would like others to assess though, in light of comments elsewhere.Regan123 (talk) 15:17, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
- Exactly, there will be variations, e.g. M2/M20. Should be a general guide, though. Will (talk) 21:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Although historically the number of digits in a road number was indicative of its importance, that isn't always true nowadays. Shouldn't the question of whether or not a road is a primary route be taken into consideration? (E.g. the A585 road is arguably more important that the A584 road on those grounds -- at the time of writing both are rated "low".) Once the importance scale has been agreed it should appear on the project page. --Dr Greg (talk) 13:18, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
- I've tried to adjust the rating as I go by reading the article to check importance. If I've got it wrong I apologise and feel free to change my assessment. The trouble is most articles claim to be a "major" road, without this being defined. We could put primary to mid and non primary to low if that is appropriate. Regan123 (talk) 18:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
- Putting primary routes as "mid" (or higher when appropriate) seems a good idea, and that is an objective fact (determinable from maps) that doesn't depend on the subjective view of reviewers or editors. Do others agree with this? (A complication may be that, I think, some road numbers only acquire "primary" status along parts of the route. That's where a bit of subjective assessment may be required.) --Dr Greg (talk) 12:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
For the benefit of anyone wondering where best to direct their attentions, the sole stub-class top-importance article (as of January 2009) is A27 road. The three start-class top-importance articles are M9 motorway, M11 motorway and M25 motorway. Certes (talk) 23:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
references
Hallo, Now that I've discovered this project, I'd like to link to a discussion I had recently with an admin about what constitutes appropriate referencing for roads - see User_talk:BrownHairedGirl#references_for_roads. At the time I couldn't find this project - not quite sure if it existed or not! Cheers, PamD (talk) 23:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
- Hi Pam. My feelings are the Motorway Archive is the first source to go to. CBRD and Pathetic Motorways are good when they are referencing official documents or have done the research. Their personal opinion sections aren't up to WP:V Regan123 (talk) 21:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Article tagging gone mad
Hello WP Roads, I have noticed that User:BetacommandBot has been adding the {{WPUKroads}} tag rather indiscriminately. For instance The List (magazine) and Edinburgh Castle are now listed as within the project, which I'm not sure is the case. It's because these (and other) articles are in Category:Royal Mile, which is a UK road. It may be worth investigating what other non-road articles are in street categories like this, meanwhile I will notify the Bot and start de-tagging Royal Mile articles. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 09:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- Apologies. Should've really double-checked my lsit (I removed the Scottish Parliament, for example). Will (talk) 10:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
ELG vs. current templates
This is a straw poll regarding whether exit lists similar to that at WP:ELG or the current ones.
- An example of the ELG kind can be seen on M62 motorway (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
- An example of the current kind can be seen on A500 road (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).
Will (talk) 17:30, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Support
- Support oh dear, I'm a US road editor. ;) but I believe that we should use a standard style worldwide, with obvious adaptations to UK roads. --Rschen7754 (T C) 19:48, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
- Support - while I don't like it being made internationalised without consensus, I think it would cut down redundancy with junction boxes (i.e. very few junctions have vastly different destinations on each carriageway) Will (talk) 20:19, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Oppose
- Oppose - I have plenty of problems with the US centic design of the lists. For the US Roads I think these work very well, but they are to my mind, far too busy, with too many images. The international coverage wasn't supported on the talk pages proceeding the MoS adoption and I see no real reason this should be made to be a "hoop" to jump through for GA or FA status. I think the A500 one can be improved on, but it is a better starting point. Most of the info in the ELG lists should be in the route prose (without it becoming an essay). Regan123 (talk) 17:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Comments
My concern with the ELG tables are:
- Division by county - we've had edit wars galore over those on WP
- A large amount of information not formatted for easy reading and covered in road icons
- The tables don't cope with different directions shown on the road signs. The Highways Agency/Transport for Scotland etc defines the signage destinations and if we put other things on there, surely it becomes WP:OR
- These large tables are not very good on smaller screens (eg. smaller laptops or older CRT monitors)
Regan123 (talk) 14:41, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
- If counties aren't defined well in the UK, we don't have to use that column.
- What information is this? I'm assuming M1 motorway uses the other format; there seems to be a lot of duplication between the two columns, but also ambiguity over exactly what ramps exist (the ramp configurations are not always symmetrical; just because you can exit northbound doesn't mean you can enter southbound).
- Which is why the A500 road version was used as the example. It's very clear where the slip roads are. M3 also clearly demonstrates it in a very logical manner.Regan123 23:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
- It's not clear to me; which ramps are present at the Stoke Road Junction? And what's with the "no exit" in both directions just below it? --NE2 00:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- Quite clearly you can't exit the road at that junction. Regan123 (talk) 00:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- But in which direction can you enter at Stoke Road? And are you saying that the junction just below has no exit ramps at all? If so, what road is it at and which direction can you enter? --NE2 16:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- You can't exit at that junction. That's all that's needed. Simple, clean, no notes needed. Regan123 (talk) 19:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- That's not all that's needed - which way can you enter? --NE2 00:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
- You can't exit at that junction. That's all that's needed. Simple, clean, no notes needed. Regan123 (talk) 19:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- But in which direction can you enter at Stoke Road? And are you saying that the junction just below has no exit ramps at all? If so, what road is it at and which direction can you enter? --NE2 16:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- Quite clearly you can't exit the road at that junction. Regan123 (talk) 00:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- It's not clear to me; which ramps are present at the Stoke Road Junction? And what's with the "no exit" in both directions just below it? --NE2 00:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- Which is why the A500 road version was used as the example. It's very clear where the slip roads are. M3 also clearly demonstrates it in a very logical manner.Regan123 23:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
- We're not saying that what's in the table is what's actually on the signs, so I don't think there's an issue with original research. If you can get to the destination by taking the exit, even if it's not the best way, there shouldn't be a problem with listing it.
- Road signs are used to manage traffic flow in many cases by directing you in one direction or another. And where do you stop? The A5 ends in Holyhead but starts near London. Exactly how many destinations are you supposed to list.Regan123 23:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
- Generally the ones that are on the signs; if the signs list different destinations on each direction, we can combine them. --NE2 00:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- Which misses the point, ignores the second issue and doesn't deal with limited egress and access points. Regan123 (talk) 00:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- If it's a partial interchange, that goes in the notes column: "Northbound exit and southbound entrance". --NE2 16:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- And road exit north goes in one direction and the opposite in another (which does happen). More explanatory notes, more clutter. And still not dealing with my original second issue. Regan123 (talk) 19:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- In this relatively rare case, you split it into two rows. --NE2 00:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
- And road exit north goes in one direction and the opposite in another (which does happen). More explanatory notes, more clutter. And still not dealing with my original second issue. Regan123 (talk) 19:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- If it's a partial interchange, that goes in the notes column: "Northbound exit and southbound entrance". --NE2 16:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- Which misses the point, ignores the second issue and doesn't deal with limited egress and access points. Regan123 (talk) 00:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- Generally the ones that are on the signs; if the signs list different destinations on each direction, we can combine them. --NE2 00:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- Road signs are used to manage traffic flow in many cases by directing you in one direction or another. And where do you stop? The A5 ends in Holyhead but starts near London. Exactly how many destinations are you supposed to list.Regan123 23:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
- The one in M1 looks fairly large, especially with the redundancy between the two directions. The example on WP:ELG looks to be about the same length; the only thing really making it bigger is the county column (which I adressed above) and the icons, which don't seem necessary given that they're just colored text. Maybe the motorway symbol would be sufficient.
- And it's about 2/3 of the width, much easier to read, is clearer and simpler. The A500, A55 are good examples. Regan123 23:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
- It's only about 2/3 of the width because it's so much taller, due to a bunch of line breaks. --NE2 00:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- Which makes it perfect for alternative display sizes beyond 17" LCDs. Regan123 (talk) 00:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- On small monitors, the ELG format will line-break, but on larger monitors it will use the full width. --NE2 16:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- And still looks an utter mess. Regan123 (talk) 19:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- Your opinion, and not that of those who worked on ELG. --NE2 00:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
- And still looks an utter mess. Regan123 (talk) 19:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- On small monitors, the ELG format will line-break, but on larger monitors it will use the full width. --NE2 16:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- And it's about 2/3 of the width, much easier to read, is clearer and simpler. The A500, A55 are good examples. Regan123 23:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I was the one who initially added the UK example to WP:ELG, which is based on a section of M6. I didn't find it particularly difficult, other than when opposing directions have different destination cities. As for counties, I used this map of ceremonial counties. Feel free to ask me any questions about adaptation issues. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 02:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for the offer, but I'm not having a problem with finding them, I just don't see the point of them. Regan123 (talk) 00:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- Well, it provides another layer of context for the location of the exit/junction. In the US, there can be areas that aren't part of any town (or on the flip side, a city with such a large area it's in multiple counties, like Oklahoma City), and thus the county is the only point of reference you have. That said, looking at the ELG's UK example, I don't know where Croft is, but at least I've heard of Cheshire, which helps give me a starting point for further research, if I so desire.—Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 03:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I have requested a peer review of London congestion charge. Any comments would be gratefully accepted as well as any advice on getting a map for the expanded zone. Regan123 (talk) 01:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Heya guys, we need to be more involved in WP:HWY. It is mostly USRD run and i think for any chance of agreeing a global consensus for anything that happens on highways, UK involvement is really needed. Also use of the #wikipedia-en-roads channel will help get things going on highways towards international consensus. Seddon69 (talk) 23:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Order of roads in infobox
This has been raised at Template talk:UK road routebox: Should the roads listed be in geographical order, or senority (i.e. motorways above primary routes, standard A-Roads, B-Roads etc)??? My reply was: Erm. I change my mind on this often. Seniority looks neater, but geographical is more accurate. Really I don't think there is a defined position. I'll raise this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Roads. What do people think? Do we need to define it? Regan123 (talk) 19:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- I think that having a huge infobox is unnecessary by having up to 30 different road numbers in the infobox, and that using an exit/junction list is a lot tidier. Seddon69 (talk) 13:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Decommissioned Guideline
This are plans for a guideline to be drawn up over the usage of the term Decommissioned at WP:Highways here. There is to be as much input into this as possible. Its has taken a long time for this to get this far. It is important that this is done with the consensus of ALL roads projects.Seddon69 (talk) 02:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Gray's Inn Road
Seeing as I'm here... As everyone at WP:LONDON and WP:LT has already flung up their hands in disgust and backed slowly away, anyone here want to take on the Augean stable of original research, trivia and insane over-attention to detail that is Gray's Inn Road? (Currently longer than Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire combined!) — iridescent 18:42, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
- Shouldn't it go to AfD? There is no assertion of notability... Regan123 (talk) 22:30, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
- After the firestorm of protest when I last AfD'd London streets - all of which were considerably less notable than this - I'm extremely reluctant to AfD this myself as it will look like a bad-faith nom. — iridescent 00:17, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Road Lists
Hi, i've now completed the A road lists for Zones 1, 2, 3 & 5. 4 is nearly there. I then plan on tackling 6. 7, 8 & 9 are missing loads of entries and if anyone feels like expanding them I will tackle the road signs. I've not got the B roads on my radar at all yet. Cheers, Regan123 (talk) 14:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
- OK 4 & 6 are now complete, leaving just 7, 8 & 9 which are at least smaller. For the B roads I have found this link which has a list of all A and B roads in 2005 in excel format. Regan123 (talk) 15:25, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
- All zones are now complete for the A roads. Also all roads now have a road sign image.Regan123 (talk) 19:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I have opened a discussion at Talk:Great Britain road numbering scheme about refocusing the article now that we have Roads in the United Kingdom. Suggestions, comments, references (in particular) would be very welcome... Regan123 (talk) 19:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Would someone mind having a look over this as I have rewritten it today. I originally assessed it as a start but it might be improved to a B I hope. I do want to get this to GA as well. Regan123 (talk) 17:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
London congestion charge
I have nominated London congestion charge for featured article status. Comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/London congestion charge. Regan123 (talk) 22:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Congestion charging generally
Copied from User talk:Regan123
It seems that congestion charge schemes are to be implemented across the whole of the UK, according to the BBC. Maybe do you think a general article on congestion charge schemes in the UK should be created. Cities identified so far (implemented or not) include: London, Durham, Derby, Edinburgh, Manchester, Belfast and probably many others. See here Simply south (talk) 22:46, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
- Hi. We already have Motoring taxation in the United Kingdom which we could redirect Congestion charging in the United Kingdom to. That article has a few too many stub sections at the moment, but work is keeping me away from WP, annoyingly. I will look at the Belfast and Derby schemes soon and see if we can create other articles. There is also an overview at Road pricing as well. Regan123 (talk) 22:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
- It doesn't seem like all things mentioned are to do with congestion charging. Motoring taxation seems to be about the many different types of schemes, of which congestion charging is just one, others including road tax and tolls. I do not think motoring taxation should redirect. Simply south (talk) 23:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
- No. I was talking about the other way round - congestion charging redirects to Motoring Taxation. At the moment I'm not sure we have enough for a separate cohesive article just on congestion charging. However I was also planning on doing an article on road pricing proposals from the government. Maybe the two could be combined into one article with a summary in Motoring Taxation. Regan123 (talk) 23:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
- It doesn't seem like all things mentioned are to do with congestion charging. Motoring taxation seems to be about the many different types of schemes, of which congestion charging is just one, others including road tax and tolls. I do not think motoring taxation should redirect. Simply south (talk) 23:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
- I've had a further search on google and just simply congestion charging is being talked about being introduced into most major cities by the various authorities, so not just the cities i've mentioned. Examples of other cities where it is, or most likely, to be implemented are Liverpool and Newcastle although others seem to be backing down e.g. Bradford. Simply south (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
- OK. I'll try and pull something together but it won't be for a few weeks yet. Alongside work i've got the FAC to work on! Regan123 (talk) 23:20, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
- And make that it seems many cities generally and some towns. I think most are still proposals only. And i won't hurry you either. I've got a huge assignment to do myself. Btw, do you think we should move this discussion to one of the many projects and then some? Simply south (talk) 23:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
What do people think about congestion charging? There are talks on many congestion charges in towns and cities across the UK. Thoughts and opinions? Simply south (talk) 23:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
M62 motorway will most likely be on the main page on 4th February
Just a heads up - I've requested that the article M62 motorway be on the main page on Monday (as the chances of London congestion charge getting there two weeks later are slim because it's been on once), and there are currently 3 supports and 0 opposes. Thanks. Will (talk) 18:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
- Well, 28th. The request for the 4th narrowly missed. Will (talk) 11:56, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Highways on Commons
WT:HWY#Highways at Commons 哦,是吗?(O-person) 03:59, 05 March 2008 (GMT)
UK road terminology?
Hello. I've just created List of road-related terminology. Could I get a few UK editors to look over it and add some UK road terminology and/or mark terms that aren't used outside the U.S.? Road enthusiast slang or other informal terms are OK for the purposes of this list. Thanks in advance! —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 19:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
B-class drive, Importance Scale and to do list
Hi all,
Continuing the discussion about Importance Scale. I have been assessing articles as such:
- Top - The major motorways in the country e.g M1, A1 & A1(M), M25, M4, M6 etc. i.e those that link major cities or go through many counties. Also this should include large motorway bridges such as the Severn Bridge and Humber Bridge etc.
- High - Other Motorways that do not fall in the Top class for example M50, M23, M69 etc. as they are either shorter in length or carry less traffic than the Top Class. It would also include major A roads that are largely dual carriageways and again go through many counties such as A55, A34, A30 etc.
- Mid - Minor spur motorways that have very few junctions such as the M271, M275, A48(M) plus A roads again that are likely to be dual-carriageway but are local roads (probably ring-roads).
- Low - Service stations, A roads (green and white signs including Trunk roads) that are single carriageway roads. I would also include proposed motorways that were never built.
The list is very close to the list that Will produced (above) but I have added a little more description. It is subjective I know.
Next I go onto "B-class drive" from the main page. I believe we should try to get every Top Importance article to Good Article status, as a minimum. For all High importance we should aim for B Class as a minimum, but for Mid and Low importance articles we have to accept that they are probably never going to reach B Class and in some instances not even Start Class, therefore Stub Class is acceptable as a minimum class. Agree / disagree ? Seth Whales (talk) 01:01, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikibook Project: Open-version highway code
As a sub-project of mine and as another hobby I would like to ask if any others who have passed their CBT, Direct Access and Driving licenses would like to contribute towards a pinpoint-accurate-referenced version of the highway code, and perhaps if popular enough open replacements for driving test related books for other countries. Of course, I will be e-mailing the DSA and others to see if anyone there would be willing to review the book for legal accuracy before it is considered a "complete" project. For anyone that is interested, please leave comments below rather than on my talk page. J O R D A N [talk ] 02:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Following a request at editor assistance, this article could probably use a once-over from this project. Its style seems to be out of step with the style used on other road articles. Thanks. Pastordavid (talk) 15:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
- The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
- The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
- A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.
Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.
Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Proposal to expand ELG's scope to non-freeways
A proposal has been made to consider expanding ELG to cover non-freeway junction lists. Please voice your opinions about the idea and how it should be implemented there. Thanks. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 09:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Motorway junction lists
I notice some of these contain some parts which say "No access", and others seem to say "No exit". AIUI, in the context of a motorway junction "access" and "exit" generally refer to the motorway itself, rather than the junction - i.e. "no access" means "you cannot get onto the motorway here". I believe that this is how other casual readers might also understand it. Any thoughts either way? 217.36.107.9 (talk) 15:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
- I'd expect No access = cannot join motorway, No exit = cannot take the exit from the motorway. Ian¹³/t 15:41, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
- M4 motorway agrees with this usage (saying "access only" and "exit only"), but it seems to be alone. M5 motorway shows "no access" for places where you cannot leave the motorway (presumably saying there is "no access to the junction"), as does M42 motorway and M1 motorway. Would anyone be opposed to changing from the current usage to the more logical reading? 217.36.107.9 (talk) 13:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
- Would "entry" be less ambiguous than "access"? --Dr Greg (talk) 17:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
- Saying "there is no access to the junction" makes sense, it's just the opposite to how most people will think of it. Substituting "entry" would not change this, since it too can carry both meanings. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 14:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
- Would "entry" be less ambiguous than "access"? --Dr Greg (talk) 17:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
- M4 motorway agrees with this usage (saying "access only" and "exit only"), but it seems to be alone. M5 motorway shows "no access" for places where you cannot leave the motorway (presumably saying there is "no access to the junction"), as does M42 motorway and M1 motorway. Would anyone be opposed to changing from the current usage to the more logical reading? 217.36.107.9 (talk) 13:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
At the moment no distances are associated with motorway exists. This is understandable since there is a metric/imperial debate within the UK regarding road distances. However in the last year or two the Highway Agency has erected hundred of driver location signs. These are described in the article on milestones. Furthermore, I recently came across a web page that was published by the Highway Agency showing the distances around the M25. I have taken the bull by the horns and incorporated those figures into the M25 Junction List section. I await comments. (User:martinvl 2009-06-09 20:15 UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Martinvl (talk • contribs)
National Cycle Routes move request
I believe the titles of these articles should be rendered in full, with redirects from abbreviated forms if people get too lazy to copy/paste. Example: National Cycle Route 1 vs. NCR 1. This seems to be the style used for most other articles where there isn't a formalized prefix (e.g. "A1" is the full title of that road, and it appears as such on the signs) - for example, a lot of the US articles are of the form U.S. Route 1, with US-1 as a redirect (see also Bundesauthobahn 1). It is also the style used in the lead sections of the articles in question.
This amounts to a move request for articles in Category:National Cycle Routes beginning NCR and RCR. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 15:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
- That seems reasonable to me. I'd also suggest renaming the category to Category:National Cycle Routes of the United Kingdom. And sort the articles in numerical order. --Dr Greg (talk) 16:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Template:GB_B_road_zone_1 abandoned?
User:Saga City (contributions) has been removing links from B Road articles to Template:GB B road zone 1 on the grounds that it has been "abandoned". Is this correct? -Arb. (talk) 19:11, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
- I think most B roads are not notable enough for articles, and after a few WP:AFD debates this appears to have become consensus (unless the consensus has recently changed without me being aware of it). As a result, most of the links would only be redirects to the list. Of the blue links that exist, all are redirects to the list with three exceptions: one to an A road, another to a named road and only the B1159 road has a separate article, so I don't think the template will be needed. --Snigbrook (talk) 19:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
- Even then, I would suggest that B1159 having its own article is something of a stretch, since there's nothing in the article which suggests the road itself has any significance. Much of the content is about things peripheral to it (i.e. a coat-rack). The primary references being maps isn't helpful either. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 08:55, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Notability for UK A-Roads
This discussion will affect a number of A-Road articles. I am looking to establish whether all A-Roads are notable or not and whether consensus has been reached on this in the past. This I hope will make things clearer and prevent futher disputes in the future.
I think all A-Roads would be inherently notable, especially if the connect two urban centres - they are likely to have some historical significance in the development of both those urban centres. However, what are your thoughts on A-Roads that only form part of an urban centre network? Rawclaw (talk) 21:03, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
- Consensus has traditionally been 1,2,3 digits=notable, 4 digits & B-roads=non-notable. WP:50k is a fairly good rule of thumb. It's certainly possible to expand very unpromising roads into valid articles, but realistically some of them will end up permastubs. – iridescent 21:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
- It may also be worth mentioning that in the case of renumberings of sections, or of well-known names, it may be more appropriate to collect everything into one article to preserve context - e.g. the A3400 between Oxford and Birmingham is a detrunked and renumbered A34, and shares historical context. Similarly, nobody cares about the A4202 - all noteworthy aspects of that road are connected with its identity as Park Lane. It is always worth bearing in mind that if you can't see an article expanding beyond stub status, or containing any information other than the basics about where it is and where it goes, it's a fairly good sign that there's no need for a separate article. Put simply - for a subject to have an article, there must be an article there to be written. This isn't a "new idea" or an "interesting theory" - it is to all intents and purposes a restatement of our existing policies, and trivial to derive from them. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 10:30, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
- For what I'd consider a "model" merger of road stubs, have a look at A1 road (London). Most of these roads aren't notable enough to warrant their own article, but by stringing them together it makes an informative article, illustrating the differing characters of the segments of the A-road, with probably more interest to the general reader stumbling across it, and without losing any of the individual stubs. (Note; the page history makes it look like I wrote the whole thing, but that's because the histories of the sections here are preserved under the titles they were merged from). – iridescent 19:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
I can see the consensus that B roads are usually non-notable, see Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/B roads in the United Kingdom per User talk:Saga City#A roads. But what about 4 digit A roads? The suggested rule in WP:50k seems very difficult to apply - you have to decide within what radius of the road you measure the 50k. There seems to me to be more indication of consensus that all A roads are usually notable. See
- Wikipedia talk:Notability (Transportation)#Streets/Roads
- AfD debate on A4018 road at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A4018 road - the result was Keep.
- User talk:Rogerb67
Clearly A roads vary in importance (and length), and article lengths will reflect that - the Croughton-London rule can sensibly be applied to roads. But there should be something informative and non-trivial to say about just about all A roads, even if it has not been written yet.Mhockey (talk) 21:53, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
- My usual argument for my horde of railway-station stubs goes along the lines of this is automatically notable by Wikipedia standards, since it's a reasonable presumption that there will undoubtedly have been significant coverage in reliable sources at the time of opening, even if we don't currently have access to those sources. You could almost certainly make a similar case for A-roads if you're prepared for interminable AfD arguments. – iridescent 22:10, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
- Certainly any A-road that has portions which are trunk routes or primary routes should be significant enough to merit an article. There is also the notion that why only certain roads are designated A-road while others are of lower class. If an A-road were really not important, wouldn't it have been classified as a B-road or even lower? I would expect the path of modern A-roads were also roughly where people used to travel before the invention of the automobile. One can always incorporate the history of the path in the article on the modern road. So, even though many current A-road articles are stubs, that does not automatically mean there is no information that can be added about them. --Polaron | Talk 22:17, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
- I would consider that "automatically notable" is a nonsense concept. We don't have anything anywhere that says that some topics are "automatically notable". Trunk roads will certainly have things written about them somewhere, since they have been given trunk status for being a major route between major destinations. There is, however, a significant difference in the classification between the rest - shorter numbers are generally more important, but that's about it. There's also not necessarily a correlation between a road's place in the scheme and our ability to write something worthwhile about it. It should not be assumed that because something has an "A" number that it must merit its own article - it very much remains the case that there must be an article there to be written that contains more than simply basic information such as the route and length, and we should have evidence of such before we begin. It's not enough to say "there are probably sources for this somewhere", WP:V is very clear about this. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 08:36, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
- That's the general principle why we have extremely short stubs on little places that's no more than "X is a village in Country Y located at coordinates i,j". Note that there s nothing principally wrong with being a stub. Your philosophy implies all stubs should be merged somewhere. --Polaron | Talk 13:11, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
- I would consider that "automatically notable" is a nonsense concept. We don't have anything anywhere that says that some topics are "automatically notable". Trunk roads will certainly have things written about them somewhere, since they have been given trunk status for being a major route between major destinations. There is, however, a significant difference in the classification between the rest - shorter numbers are generally more important, but that's about it. There's also not necessarily a correlation between a road's place in the scheme and our ability to write something worthwhile about it. It should not be assumed that because something has an "A" number that it must merit its own article - it very much remains the case that there must be an article there to be written that contains more than simply basic information such as the route and length, and we should have evidence of such before we begin. It's not enough to say "there are probably sources for this somewhere", WP:V is very clear about this. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 08:36, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
This a list of A road articles in Zone 4 (I haven't checked other zones) which have recently been blanked and redirected, all by one editor, and not reverted: A4025 road A4076 road A4094 road A4119 road A4196 road A4221 road A4230 road A4536 road Those articles have also been removed from Template:GB A road zone 4, and so have the following articles which were blanked/redirected and have now been reverted: A431 road A432 road A4018 road A4160 road A4214 road In most cases the reason given in the edit summary is "No content" (or something similar) rather than lack of notability. Mhockey (talk) 14:20, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
- Can you explain how we can positively determine that something is notable from a complete lack of content about it? 217.36.107.9 (talk) 14:51, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
- That's missing the point altogether. What everyone is saying is that even though the article is a stub and there's no publicly available information available about it on the internet, then it does not mean that it is "automatically not notable". There is bound to be a lot of historical information somewhere about A roads, most likely in government archives. Rawclaw (talk) 08:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
- Subjects should be assumed not notable in the absence of evidence to the contrary, since you can prove something is notable. A guide to the "non-trivial" part of WP:N is that you have people writing about it in other contexts. The people that turn up on Big Brother are nobodies, until people start showing an interest in their life outside of the house. Similarly, it should be assumed that information about the route, and most information supplied by the Highways Agency or RSNI amounts to trivial coverage. People often misunderstand precisely what "trivial" means. To take an extreme example, the A1 is well-covered historically independent of "it goes from London to Edinburgh". 217.36.107.9 (talk) 10:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
- That's missing the point altogether. What everyone is saying is that even though the article is a stub and there's no publicly available information available about it on the internet, then it does not mean that it is "automatically not notable". There is bound to be a lot of historical information somewhere about A roads, most likely in government archives. Rawclaw (talk) 08:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with that. WP:N is very clear that notability and content (or lack of it) are separate issues. As has already been said, articles which are little more than definitions may satisfy WP:N - although they should be capable of expansion. You need to look at the available info about a topic, not what the article says at a point in time. Also, "complete lack of content" seems to be overstating the case - when it is applied to a 3 paragraph, 1,750 byte, article (A4018 road).Mhockey (talk) 10:03, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
- Bytes do not make content. Substance makes content. Describing where a road is and what towns it goes through is not substantial. A one-line stub cannot possibly meet WP:N, since it does not provide evidence of "non-trivial coverage". A three-paragraph article that says nothing more than the basics also fails by the same token. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 10:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
- A one-line stub cannot possibly meet WP:N. Why not? It is clear from WP:N that you do not look for evidence of notability only in the article. Let's just remind ourselves what a stub is. If you look at WP:STUB, it is clear that a definition may (my italics) qualify as a stub, although the practice is not encouraged. It should not be "so short as to provide no useful information." Nothing about "substantial". So are you saying that "describing where a road is and what towns it goes through" does not provide useful information? In fact A4018 road does quite a bit more than that - it discusses the reasons for the road's importance, and its history.
- It would be very helpful if you could say what you think should be in an A road article.Mhockey (talk) 21:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps I'm missing something, but I can't find anything in A4018 road that "discusses the reasons for the road's importance". 217.36.107.9 (talk) 09:07, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
- This is what I was referring to: The A4018 is an A-road which is one of the three principal roads which link Bristol city centre to the motorway network (the others being the M32 motorway and the Portway). Mhockey (talk) 18:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
- Nope, still not seeing how that makes it worthy of an encyclopaedia article. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 08:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
- This is what I was referring to: The A4018 is an A-road which is one of the three principal roads which link Bristol city centre to the motorway network (the others being the M32 motorway and the Portway). Mhockey (talk) 18:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps I'm missing something, but I can't find anything in A4018 road that "discusses the reasons for the road's importance". 217.36.107.9 (talk) 09:07, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Road article moves
Nono64 (talk · contribs) has been WP:BOLD, and set about getting "a uniform presentation for road articles among countries"; unfortunately he was unaware of this project nor WikiProject Highways; I thought it best to bring this to the attention of this project, so that a consensus can be formed over the policy for naming roads in the UK, before his changes can be set as policy, tweaked or undone as required. (See also User_talk:Nono64#Road article moves) -- ratarsed (talk) 10:43, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Reverting B road Articles
- For the life of me, I do not understand why editors who are members of the UK roads project are so anti articles about B roads. I have heard the views on these roads not being notable enough, but I have made an effort to place reasons on the talk pages which have been totally ignored with the result being that these articles have been revert back to a list of B roads. The reverter has made little effort to enter into very little positive discussion or reason for the reverts. Why do you think that reverting pages with a description of a road, all be it some what basic, would be better to reverted to an article that is just a list of B roads. Wikipedia List are best used as a navigation to Articles within the list. If all that’s wanted is a list of B roads there are list already on the web, [1]sabre for example. Most B roads are ancient routes that have criss-crossed this country since the acts of enclosure which in itself makes them notable. I have over 4000 edits on Wikipedia and have never found such intransigence over an issue. These reverts are nothing more than a form of deletion without any form of consensus. Stavros1 (talk) 20:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
- Any road is welcome to have its own article if you can demonstrate through multiple, independent, non-trivial sources why the road is notable enough to warrant its own entry. Wikipedia is not a travel directory, and your B1156 article, for example, didn't have a single source other than an ordnance survey reference and no assertion of notability. – iridescent 16:22, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
- The assertion that it is an important conduit between 2 major roads however does hint at notability, so, in the case of deletion, wouldn't for example likely meet CSD standards, instead requiring more discussion at a place like AfD. Ian¹³/t 15:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
- I don't agree that such an assertion hints at notability, quite simply because the same criterion applies to thousands of other roads, and the very word "notable" implies something which stands out (and therefore "worthy of note"). AfD is not an appropriate venue, because nobody is proposing anything for deletion here. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 16:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
- The assertion that it is an important conduit between 2 major roads however does hint at notability, so, in the case of deletion, wouldn't for example likely meet CSD standards, instead requiring more discussion at a place like AfD. Ian¹³/t 15:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Exit lists
I see that M62 motorway has taken a different direction in showing the exits. Is this something people think is a good idea for all other motorway articles? Ian¹³/t 18:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- This looks rather like the style used by WP:USRD, and suspect that's where whoever changed it saw it. I'm not sure of the advantage of showing an icon for each road. This sort of works with the American highway system since the physical appearance of the various signs is different - each state uses a different symbol to represent roads under its jurisdiction, though some are common. Here, the signs for the motorways actually appear with smaller text on them, and everything else amounts to just text on a background. It also means that access restrictions are rather more verbose, from a simple "no access" or "no exit" in the relevant place. Perhaps the former can be dealt with by losing the images and simply placing a small icon by motorways:
County | Location | Mile | # | Destinations | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cheshire | Burtonwood | 11 | 8 | A574 | Warrington, Burtonwood | |
Burtonwood Services | ||||||
Winwick | 13 | 9 | A49 | Warrington, Newton-le-Willows | ||
Croft | 15 | 10 | M6 | Birmingham, Preston, Chester, Manchester Airport | 53°25′34″N 2°33′22″W / 53.426024°N 2.55614°W | |
Risley | 17 | 11 | A574 | Warrington, Birchwood |
- Thoughts? 217.36.107.9 (talk) 13:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
- Oh, that does look nicer than the example I linked. Sadly that whole system doesn't work well with differing access at junctions for the carriageways, although I'm not sure how that can be improved. Ian¹³/t 21:49, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for UK road
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Articles class rating
I have improved a few articles, including A491 road and I feel that the class allocated to them in the project banner now longer reflects the class of the article. Do I just be bold and change it, or is there some other system in place? In this situation I don't want to step on peoples toes! Jenuk1985 (talk) 20:57, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think there is a set system. I have gone ahead and changed it to start class anyway for you, as it certainly isn't a stub any more (nice work). Ian¹³/t 21:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
- What more do you think could be done to that article? What kind of information? I don't think I can add much more without descending into pointless and irrelevant facts. Jenuk1985 (talk) 21:49, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Coordinates for linear features
I have started a page, to give guidance on adding coordinates to articles about linear features such as roads and rivers. I intend to use it to document current practise, and develop polices for future use. Please feel free to add to it, or to discuss the matter on its talk page. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Query
The article William Brown Street is tagged as being a part of this wikiproject, however I think this is a mistake as its not a road per se (the tag was added by a bot). Anyway just wondered if its ok if I remove the tag from the article. Cheers --Daviessimo (talk) 20:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
A discussion regarding the primary source or secondary source classification of highway maps
Wikipedia talk:No original research#Regarding maps being "primary sources" according to this policy --Rschen7754 (T C) 05:18, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Article naming conventions
I've noticed some of the road articles have been disambiguated with "England", "Great Britain" or "United Kingdom" added to them, and thought it would be better if there was some consistency. Is there any consensus on how these articles should be disambiguated? —Snigbrook 00:52, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- I'd say (Great Britain) throughout for GB, otherwise it gets hopelessly messy. (United Kingdom) should never be used IMO, as Northern Ireland has its own numbering system. – iridescent 15:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- Agreed - I'd see it that Great Britain should be the norm, with the following exceptions
- the article needs splitting into smaller entries, such as A1 road (Great Britain) and A1 road (London). Obviously, the two should contain links to oneanother
- duplicated numbering within GB numbering scheme - e.g. if both B198s were notable enough to have their own articles, I'd say that B198 road (Great Britain) would be a dab link page to B198 road (Hertfordshire) and B198 road (Cambridgeshire)
- duplicate uses of numbers on mainland Great Britain, as well as on other islands - e.g. Channel Islands, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, where the A1 road (Great Britain) should probably contain a link to A1 road (Northern Ireland) or dab page. C2r (talk) 23:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
L3121 road at AfD
Any guidance would be appreciated here. -- Banjeboi 07:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Road Bridges/Tunnels
I've just been doing a few edits on the Kingsmead Viaduct page, and linked it through to the project here... For articles such as this we don't seem to have a category or a method of determining importance - anyone got any thoughts...? I've upped it to Start class from Stub class, as there's now slightly more info on the page - but how do we grade the importance of bridges, viaducts, and tunnels? Structurally, this one isn't anything unique or significant as, say, the Humber Bridge but it probably carries more vehicles per day, and benefits the residents of the nearby towns more than the Humber Bridge does. Any thoughts welcomed! C2r (talk) 23:09, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Road cup?
Hello from across the ocean. We are having a contest in the U.S. and Canada road WikiProjects, and we were wondering if you would be interested in being included: User:Rschen7754/USRDCRWPCup. Let me know here or at my talk page if there is enough interest. --Rschen7754 (T C) 23:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Service Station Categories
Hi, I'm working on the "wanted categories" page and came across a curious thing. Your project seems to have two categories for the same thing. There is: Category:UK Motorway Service Stations and Category:Motorway service stations in the United Kingdom. To me this looks like an error but I'm not that bright so might be wrong. Is there any way to tell whether we really need both of these? If this is not actually to do with your project, then I apologise in advance. Cottonshirt (talk) 14:54, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Coventry Road
Dumb question from a non-member of this wikiproject. The article Coventry Road is (suprisingly) about the cricket ground, not the road. Does it deserve a hatnote to point to A45 road? Or does that open a big can of worms if we start worrying about road names? --Jameboy (talk) 20:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Primary destinations
Should we only list the primary destinations that are on a road or other signed primary destinations? I suggested that only primary destinations on the road should be signed on A303 and this was changed to list just Andover. On A406 I noted that the Woolwich Ferry is not on the A406 itself but a signed primary destination and it was decided that as the Woolwich Ferry is on the route notes that it should still be included in the list even though the road does not go there. ZoeL (talk) 13:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- I would hink that it would have to be at least four miles away to be included. Regards, FM [ talk to me | show contributions ] 10:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Google Maps (and their data supplier, Tele Atlas) seem to have downgraded the Aston Expressway to the A5127. Is this a temporary snafu, or is there some sort of change here I'm missing? — sjorford++ 12:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
- Its just the Tele Atlas data being incorrect, and has been for a long while now (which happens fairly regularly, thus Google Maps shouldn't really be used for references here). The Aston Expressway is well and truly there. jenuk1985 (talk) 16:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
- I feared as much - I've submitted an update with MapInsight, but I won't hold my breath. — sjorford++ 12:01, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Primary Destinations?
On the Infoboxes for each road, it only shows the viewer the primary destinations. In my opinion, what is and what isn't a primary destination does not seem to make sense. I feel that it should not be the only thing on the list. US route info boxes show places above a certain population on the list with control cities in italic. Couldn't we have something like places with 15,000 or more shown with Primary Destinations in italic? It would probably leave the viewer less confused! Regards, FM [ talk to me | show contributions ] 10:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
- There is a link to List of primary destinations on the United Kingdom road network on each infobox, so any reader is able to click on that link for an explanation of the destinations listed. Any more destinations than the "core" destinations will generate lists that are too long. Jenuk1985 | Talk 17:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
- So maybe so on long roads which have a lot of places on but with ones with not too many Primary Route Destinations?
It would still be a lot more helpful to the reader to include other places! And as for the link, I wouldn't want to search through a massive list. Anyway "Where a lot of traffic should head to", whoever made the list was obviously short sited. Regards, FM [ talk to me | show contributions ] 21:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Service station articles
I have been working on all of the Service Station articles recently, and have generated a list (User:Jenuk1985/MSA Progress) to keep track of what still needs doing. Are there any objections to move that list into a task force of this WikiProject? Jenuk1985 | Talk 18:01, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.
All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:51, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
The World Roads Portal is at Peer Review, if any editors know of any articles, images, news items or DYKs which could be added to the Portal, please add them directly to the portal or contact ....SriMesh | talk 19:05, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Exit lists
There are currently a couple of discussions going on regarding exit lists where some input may be appreciated. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography#Request for Input and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (exit lists)#This MoS is very US based. Thanks! Jenuk1985 | Talk 13:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Local chapter for the Wikimedia Foundation
We are Wikimedia UK - the group of local Wikimedians helping the Foundation to create "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge". Love Wikipedia? Based in the UK? Can you support us in projects such as generating free-content photographs, freeing up archive material and media relations? Or are there other projects you'd like us to help with? if so, please click here to Join up, Donate and Get Involved |
AndrewRT(Talk) 21:31, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Important poll at WT:ELG
There is a discussion and an important poll at WT:ELG regarding standards for whether major intersections tables for at-grade roads should follow ELG standards and whether or not colors should be allowed in exit lists. We could use some votes from members of this project. Dough4872 (talk) 13:47, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
National Cycle Network?
Can someone please explain why the National Cycle Network is part of the UK Roads WikiProject? Just seems a bit misplaced. Kevin Steinhardt (talk) 17:12, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
GA Reassessment of A215 road
A215 road has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 18:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Historical Section When Appropriate?
Hello from the US. I think there is a need for an historical section for those roads which are of historical interest. I recently visited Edinburgh, and walked the length of Rose Street. I'm intrigued by the flower designs in the road, and want to know more about their history and symbolism (even if they are purely decorative). When I looked at the Wikipedia article for Rose Street, I saw pertinent information concerning the pubs and stores, but nothing of the history of the road and the designs I saw. Roads like Rose Street or the Royal Mile in Edinburgh certainly have a rich history. It would be fitting for the articles concerning these roads to include this information. Note: I realize the purpose of these articles is as a functional resource, and historical information would be low on the priority list. --JessWLStuart (talk) 23:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Template:Jct for UK
There has been some discussion at Template talk:Jct about adding functionality for UK and Europe to the template. If you're not familiar, {{Jct}} is used by WP:USRD and WP:CRWP editors to facilitate linking to roads in junction lists and infoboxes. --Fredddie™ 09:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
- If anyone's interested, I did the list on A406 road (which previously didn't have a list) using {{jct}}. --NE2 02:09, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
More opinions would be helpful at talk:M25 motorway
There is a discussion currently at Talk:M25 motorway#7 Dec 2009 Undo primarily regarding the units of distance used for the junction table. The opinions of others would be useful as consensus will probably not be forthcoming without wider input. Thryduulf (talk) 00:09, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Relationship with "Roader's Digest - The SABRE Wiki"
As some of you might be aware, for the past year or so, The Society for British And Irish Road Enthusiasts has set up its own wiki and has a number of dedicated enthusiasts working on it. Before then, I personally felt a lot of content had stagnated, being static and overpersonal descriptions from around 2003 - 2004. I'm glad that we're working towards improving these.
Opinions of Wikipedia are mixed, some are favourable (Jenuk1985 is one of the most consistent and hardworking contributors to both WikiProject UK Roads and SABRE), some don't like it, and others are ambivalent. One of my concerns is colliding or clashing with Wikipedia - there's a lot of information on A4119 road that would complement SABRE's entry, which I wrote largely on 20+ year old memories. There's good bits in both articles and an amalgamation of the two would probably work well.
What I'd personally like to see is the content reflect the aim of where it sits - general stuff for non enthusiasts in here; hard core in-depth stuff on SABRE. I don't mind pages on the M1 or M62 because most people in the UK have heard about these, but I have sounded off about things like the (GB) M12 Motorway before, because I personally feel that the layman isn't going to have a clue what you're talking about.
What do you lot think? --Ritchie333 (talk) 19:01, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Need for a 'UK Roads MOS'
There is a discussion at talk:A5 road (Great Britain)#Insufficient Detail on the subject of how much detail the article should have about the local features along the route. A few years ago, this and many other UK roads were tagged with WP:Essay, and a large amount of material deleted (and copied back into the talk page). Other roads, such as A66 road, have rather less 'background action' and this has been cited (eg in Talk:A45 road#Article style as 'a good thing'. Other editors strongly disagreed, saying that the outcome is an article lacking in texture. A6 road (Great Britain) is a current extreme example of the 'former Little Chef' style of editing, and seems to me to offend WP:Essay and WP:Trivia.
So evidently we need a WP:UK Roads MOS which reflects a consensus on how little is too little and how much is too much.
Comments? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- See my above edit. Keep the summary here short and concise - what does a layman who doesn't want to be a road enthusiast need to know? Then redirect the bulk to Roader's Digest - The SABRE Wiki. --Ritchie333 (talk) 14:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Exit list guide discussion
All editors of the WikiProject UK Roads are requested to voice concerns that they may have with WP:ELG, the MOS exit list guide, so that it may be amended and used for exit lists in all countries. Please see WT:ELG#International changes for discussion and to propose changes. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 06:09, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Straw poll on ELG revision
There is now a straw poll at WT:ELG to decide on the proposed revision and renaming of WP:ELG. Imzadi1979 (talk) 02:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Help re coords on UK roads articles.
I'm working on the cleanup listing for Wikipedia:WikiProject Somerset. A bot has added "United Kingdom articles missing geocoordinate data" to:
Is there any guidance on adding these - should they be for each end of the road, mid point or what & how should they be added. Alternatively should I just remove the coord needed template?— Rod talk 13:00, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
- Yes: WikiProject Geographical coordinates/Linear. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:05, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks, I've used Template:PoIgb but some had been done by others with coords in the infobox - if someone fancied checking they are all done OK now that would be great.— Rod talk 19:10, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
- When adding multiple PoIs, it's a good idea to also use {{kml}}. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:04, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks, I've used Template:PoIgb but some had been done by others with coords in the infobox - if someone fancied checking they are all done OK now that would be great.— Rod talk 19:10, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Portal: U.S. Roads
P:USRD has been renominated at for featured status at WP:FPOC, with the nomination here. Any comments are appreciated. Imzadi 1979 → 00:25, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Colors on junction lists
I'm just posting here to summarize a discussion that took place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (road junction lists)#Colors with a proposal to UKRD. I had discovered that the shades of blue, green and yellow in use in the junction table headers don't match the shades used in the marker graphics at the top of the infoboxes. I had initially proposed that the tables be changed to match, but after further discussion, Martinvl located the correct colors. In short, both the tables and the graphics use the wrong colors. Fredddie and I have made inquiries to see if there is a way to use AWB or another automated tool to correct the graphics. If there is, I'm willing to make the corrections myself. I'm also willing to run AWB to help change the color coding in the articles' junction tables myself. I will defer to the project, but my services are available, should UKRD wish to exploit the opportunity. Imzadi 1979 → 23:02, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
- I thought it appropriate to list the colours described above in a permanent location so that others could easily find them. I trust that no-one objects to me pre-emptively adding them to the project page. Martinvl (talk) 20:44, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
SVG Motorway signs
There is a nice set of svg motorway signs at commons:Category:British motorway plaques but a lot of the infoboxes on the motorways are using png images at present. One of the reason is that the svg option is using a different naming scheme to try and find the svgs which doesn't find the set I've linked. I did consider changing the infobox to use this set but one issue with this set at present is that there is a space in the filename for the (M) motorways (e.g. File:UK-Motorway-A1 (M).svg, so I'm going to see if I can get those renamed. -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:12, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
- I'll have this all sorted out soon. Once done, I'll make svg images the default in {{UK motorway routebox}}. -- WOSlinker (talk) 11:31, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
- Also, the advantages of using svg for all will be a consistent colour for all the motorway signposts on the article. For example see M67 motorway where the big M67 and the small M60 are different shades of blue. -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:49, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Road Lengths in Infoboxes
The {{UK motorway routebox}} template calculates the length in km if you specify the length in miles. However, the {{UK road routebox}} template doesn't do that. I'm going to merge the two length settings in that infobox into one row (similar to the motorway infobox) and also add the ability to calculate the length in km if it is not specified by the length-km parameter. -- WOSlinker (talk) 13:16, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
- Good idea, I kept meaning to do that myself but never got round to it! Thanks :) Jeni (talk) 14:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
WP:RJL - international junction list guide discussion
I have made a proposal for integrating the UK into the international junction list guideline - it's really not much more than conforming to what your project guidelines and Wikipedia MOS guidelines dictate. Please see WT:RJL to comment.
P.S. You may want to consider archiving this talk page, it's getting long. --Rschen7754 17:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
- Would members of the group please look at the changes - I don't like the approach that has been taken, namely that deviations from the American way are "permitted deviations" rather than starting off with a common statement and working the differences from there. Moreover a certain amount of discussion was carried out on my talk page which I am transferring to the WP:RJL talk page. Martinvl (talk) 20:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Over-lengthy route descriptions
Hi folks, I've been adding {{essay-entry}} to any UK road article which has a prose-format route description. I've started an Editor assistance discussion about one particular article, where an editor who feels like he "owns" the article has twice removed that tag with little consideration for Wikipedia policy or this Project's B-class article guidance. I would welcome your thoughts and actions on this matter. — MapsMan [ talk | cont ] — 08:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Primary Destinations
I've noticed a lot of people have added towns to the List of primary destinations on the United Kingdom road network where they are in fact not so, and likewise to the road articles' routeboxes. As far as I know, the only official guidance to which destinations are primary is in the form of Local Transport Note 1/94 published by the then Department of Transport. Highway Authorities do frequently ignore this guidance, either wilfully or unwittingly, but our place as an Encyclopedia is to record fact backed up by official sources. I would appreciate this project's editors' assistance in checking articles that erroneously give Primary Destinations that are not the case. However, if anyone is aware of any other official instrument specifying Primary Destinations either nationally or regionally, then please let me know. I have a PDF copy of LTN 1/94, should any editor wish to have it available; although I try to keep on top of List of primary destinations on the United Kingdom road network to ensure the destinations listed are included in LTN 1/94. — MapsMan [ talk | cont ] — 08:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
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Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:48, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)
Infobox conversion proposal
I have a proposal to make. {{Infobox road}} has been updated this summer for improved accessbility and for better compliance with MOS guidelines. In the process, the backend of the template was also rebuilt to completely globalize the template. It is now is use in highway articles in every country except the UK and Ireland. Australia is currently converting over this weekend. I would like to propose that the UK convert, as the UK is fully supported. There are two benefits: improved accessibility and consistency in appearance with the rest of the highway articles. I've mocked up some samples at User:Imzadi1979/Sandbox3. The links at the bottom of the infobox are customizable at {{Infobox road/browselinks/GBR}}. Imzadi 1979 → 23:00, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- P.S. in case anyone is wondering, those are separate map and photo parameters. The template does support both simultaneously, but the examples I used only had one, the other or neither. Imzadi 1979 → 23:08, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- The "photo" parameter needs a pseudo parameter of "image", very few if any UK infoboxes use "photo" as a parameter, as it stands its potentially too confusing to bring into use in the UK. Jeni (talk) 00:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not the one that picked the parameter names (I'd have used photo and caption, not photo and photo_notes personally). I'm not an admin though, so I can't make the change myself, only propose it. Imzadi 1979 → 00:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Done. There is now image, image_notes and image_alt that correspond to photo, photo_notes and photo_alt. Imzadi 1979 → 01:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Other comments? Btw, there's no need to worry about handling the conversions. A few of us that have done other countries' articles can handle the UK's articles in an evening or so. Imzadi 1979 → 14:23, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- If there are no further comments, I will commence conversion later today (my time zone) after I get some some sleep for tonight and run a research errand to the main public library downtown. Imzadi 1979 → 06:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Only change a handful to start with so that we can dig out any issues before the whole lot are done. Jeni (talk) 09:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Here's a link which shows which roads have been changed over. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- As it stands it fails WP:ENGVAR when used in UK articles, "Major intersections" needs to be changed to "Major junctions" (or something to that effect) for UK uses and "Highway system" needs to be changed to "Road Network" (again, or something to that effect). Jeni (talk) 10:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Might be better to change "Major intersections" to "Route" otherwise "Major junctions" would be on there twice. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, that would work. Jeni (talk) 10:53, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Jeni, I'm just trying to clarify something here, so bear with me a second. The original proposal up there ↑ had a sandbox of before and after so we could catch any issues before converting live articles. I just want to make this clear though, no one in the UK calls them "highways" and the lot of them a "system"? No one in the UK calls them "intersections"? I actually had thought that all the language used for all of the labels in the infobox were regionally neutral. Now, WOS's idea of "route" for a side label doesn't sit well with me. I'd rather pull the side label and move "Major junctions" to the header bar completely. That was discussed once in the spring recoding when we notices that "Major junctions" was used in two places. Instead, the header bar was renamed "Major intersections". The terminal locations are "major junctions" just as much as any intermediate ones, so that's why I'd prefer to move/replace the text rather than try to introduce new wording. Imzadi 1979 → 20:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Roads are not called highways very often in the UK but we do have the Highway Code. -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Jeni, I'm just trying to clarify something here, so bear with me a second. The original proposal up there ↑ had a sandbox of before and after so we could catch any issues before converting live articles. I just want to make this clear though, no one in the UK calls them "highways" and the lot of them a "system"? No one in the UK calls them "intersections"? I actually had thought that all the language used for all of the labels in the infobox were regionally neutral. Now, WOS's idea of "route" for a side label doesn't sit well with me. I'd rather pull the side label and move "Major junctions" to the header bar completely. That was discussed once in the spring recoding when we notices that "Major junctions" was used in two places. Instead, the header bar was renamed "Major intersections". The terminal locations are "major junctions" just as much as any intermediate ones, so that's why I'd prefer to move/replace the text rather than try to introduce new wording. Imzadi 1979 → 20:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, that would work. Jeni (talk) 10:53, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Might be better to change "Major intersections" to "Route" otherwise "Major junctions" would be on there twice. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- As it stands it fails WP:ENGVAR when used in UK articles, "Major intersections" needs to be changed to "Major junctions" (or something to that effect) for UK uses and "Highway system" needs to be changed to "Road Network" (again, or something to that effect). Jeni (talk) 10:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Here's a link which shows which roads have been changed over. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Only change a handful to start with so that we can dig out any issues before the whole lot are done. Jeni (talk) 09:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- If there are no further comments, I will commence conversion later today (my time zone) after I get some some sleep for tonight and run a research errand to the main public library downtown. Imzadi 1979 → 06:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Other comments? Btw, there's no need to worry about handling the conversions. A few of us that have done other countries' articles can handle the UK's articles in an evening or so. Imzadi 1979 → 14:23, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Done. There is now image, image_notes and image_alt that correspond to photo, photo_notes and photo_alt. Imzadi 1979 → 01:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not the one that picked the parameter names (I'd have used photo and caption, not photo and photo_notes personally). I'm not an admin though, so I can't make the change myself, only propose it. Imzadi 1979 → 00:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Would this be a UK-only header change or a change to the template for everyone? Imzadi 1979 → 02:08, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- The wording just needs localising in this instance. I'm not 100% up on Irish terminology, but I have a gut feeling it may be the same there... may be a good idea to ask WP:IRELAND on that one. Jeni (talk) 02:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- A few other things (as discussed on IRC):
- It doesn't seem that Ax(M) roads (such as A48(M)) are handled.
- Set up type's for B, C, H, U and V (all minor) - We currently have articles for B roads, and it may be best to include the others on the off chance we end up with articles on them (though unlikely)
- Set up a pseudo parameter "number" to use instead of "route"
- I think that's it! Jeni (talk) 03:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- I've added an AM type and converted the A48(M). -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:06, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- The AM type wasn't added into {{infobox road/meta/colors}} though, so it's not showing the right shade of blue. If you're adding that in, the easiest way to add in the B/C/H/U/V types would be to set the UK default to the same as the A-minor color scheme. Then anything that isn't M, AM, A will be black and white. Imzadi 1979 → 07:41, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- I've updated the colours. -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:40, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- I've written the code updates and put in an editrequest. The only thing not done at the moment is the route=number alias, but only because I need more time to work out that. Imzadi 1979 → 22:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- With one small hiccough, editrequest done. Imzadi 1979 → 22:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- I've written the code updates and put in an editrequest. The only thing not done at the moment is the route=number alias, but only because I need more time to work out that. Imzadi 1979 → 22:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- I've updated the colours. -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:40, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- The AM type wasn't added into {{infobox road/meta/colors}} though, so it's not showing the right shade of blue. If you're adding that in, the easiest way to add in the B/C/H/U/V types would be to set the UK default to the same as the A-minor color scheme. Then anything that isn't M, AM, A will be black and white. Imzadi 1979 → 07:41, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- I've added an AM type and converted the A48(M). -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:06, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Pre-empted an issue, but there is now an |orbital=
parameter that works similar to the |beltway_city=
parameter, but outputs "Orbital around <city>" instead of "Beltway around <city>". Imzadi 1979 → 23:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Infobox maps
Hi, in case you haven't noticed I've just refreshed the location maps used in UK articles, providing county-level coverage of GB (not Ireland unfortunately); there is a list available here. One major change with respect to the older maps is that primary routes are now (generally) depicted in addition to motorways.
I expect that there are a number of errors in the identification of primary routes, with some sections incorrectly identified by me as non-primary routes and the reverse. I'd appreciate it if people familiar with the UK road network could verify the maps, and bring any errors to my attention.
One specific problem I'd like guidance on, with respect to Shropshire: [2]. File:Shropshire UK location map.svg does not show the A442 from Telford north to the A53. The map's source is OS data, which shows that section of the A442 as a non-primary route at all scales of their mapping. However, other sources I've quickly checked (such as an AA road atlas) show it as a primary route. Which is right, and what actually is the canonical source for the status of UK roads?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:07, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Junction lists
For motorway articles there are lists of junctions, for A roads though I note a lack of consistency. The A12, A13 and A406 all have a list of junctions but using different formats. The first question here should be if a list of junctions is relevant to A road articles and if so should we agree on a format. Personally I think the A13 article does it quite well. ZoeL (talk) 12:45, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
- Keep in mind WP:RJL which applies to roads worldwide. (Though A13 isn't too far off from that format). --Rschen7754 17:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
- The general way of working it seems to be that if an A road forms an "expressway" (quotation marks as we don't officially have expressways here) then it's probably a good idea to have an exit list. Jeni (talk) 22:46, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
- In American to British translation, an American "expressway" is roughly a "dual carriageway", an American "freeway" is a "motorway". (The difference in North America is that an expressway might not have grade separated junctions but a freeway does. Some regions call both types of roads "expressways".) Imzadi 1979 → 23:22, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not sure about the A12, A13 and A406, but the A14 and A55 roads both have official junction numbers, are mostly grade separated with motorway standards in places, but retain a few roundabouts and other gaps (right turns on the A14 and farm access on the A55 between Bangor and Llanfairfechan) and there's even a single carriageway section on the A55 over the Britannia Bridge. Despite all this, the A55 is locally referred to as the North Wales Expressway, and I guess that it might have been built as a Motorway had it been thought possible.
- Anyway, the point is that I don't know of that many non-motorways with official junction numbers, but I'd take them as a prompt to have a Junction List table. I'd probably also do it for other roads with extensive dual carriageways with significant lengths of grade separation (eg the A92 between the M90 and Glenrothes), and could even be applied to some mostly single carriageway roads, such as the A9 from Dunblane to just north of Inverness. Tim PF (talk) 22:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Great North Road
Proposing a split from A1 road (Great Britain). See Talk:A1 road (Great Britain)#Great North Road (Split?). Simply south...... 19:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Angel
I am also proposing the move of Angel, London to Angel, Islington, as the latter full title is commonly used when it is not shortened to London. See Talk:Angel, London. Simply south...... 20:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
New contest
User:Dough4872/GA by number, a contest encouraged to improve articles to GA quality. Dough4872 03:44, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
An RfC that could affect the project
WT:No original research#Are maps secondary sources? Imzadi 1979 → 16:41, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
- Be aware that most major mapmakers put "trap sheets" in their work to stop them being copied, so while an Ordnance Survey map would be generally considered a good notable secondary source, you cannot be sure that they are absolutely definitive. OpenStreetMap maps tend to be good from experience as they survive strong peer review. Google Maps coverage, via Teleatlas, is sadly laughably full of mistakes left right and centre. --Ritchie333 (talk) 19:59, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
SABRE
Hi all,
There are some problems with the article on SABRE, which I'm sure a few UK roads people will be familiar with. Could anybody help out? bobrayner (talk) 13:52, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
A1 road (London) is going through a GAR
Details here: Talk:A1 road (London)/GA2. SilkTork ✔Tea time 00:39, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
- And people wonder why this project is stone dead..... --Ritchie333 (talk) 19:10, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Proposal to geotag all highway articles
There is currently a proposal to modify WT:RJL to allow geotagging of highway articles in the junction lists, at specified important points along the route. Your input is welcome. --Rschen7754 02:31, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
Proposal to make project inactive
Hi everyone (or whoever still reads this),
It seems pretty clear that this project is near dead and there's no activity on it. This might be because events are covered elsewhere on the net (eg: via CBRD), or that everything that's likely to pass WP:Notability has already been written.
I'd like to propose that we mark this project as "inactive" and suggest people do the following :
- Take existing articles and clean them up as desired
- For new articles, strongly consider whether they should belong on Roader's Digest - The SABRE Wiki which deals with far more in depth and obscure stuff that may be unlikely to survive a deletion review.
This shouldn't come as any surprise as I mentioned this same proposal over 15 months ago (albeit to no response).
I had contemplated adding Roader's Digest to List of Wikis, but I don't necessarily think it will survive a place there because the wiki itself is not notable - so marking it on the project page here might be a more suitable alternative step.
Discuss! --Ritchie333 (talk) 13:42, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
- That's a no from me. I wish Sabre well, but would prefer that we improve articles here. I come across people from time to time working on UK road articles, and we might as well keep this hangout open lest anyone wants to talk. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:05, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Article assessment
FWIW, I've quality assessed all of the hitherto unassessed UKRoads articles. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:05, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
HWY A-class review
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways#A-class review. Dough4872 02:48, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
- The WP:HWY/ACR page has been set up.
{{UKRD|ACR=yes}}
will now start an A-Class Review for a UKRD article. Project members are invited to participate in reviewing articles at ACR. Imzadi 1979 → 20:25, 6 September 2011 (UTC)- That appears to have a US focus. Is there a globalised equivalent, or is the impression given false? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:32, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- Ask Floydian why Ontario Highway 401 is at HWY/ACR then. Tomoebe will be bringing A1 (Croatia) there at some point as well. Imzadi 1979 → 21:54, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- WP:HWY is the global projects... but USRD is by far and large more active than the others combined, so when the ACR process was merged, their editor presence obviously is the greatest. The only solution is improving articles! - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 22:57, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with Floydian here. If you look at the number of GA-and-above articles under USRD compared to all the others, it shouldn't be shocking that ACR is slightly US focused. Now, that being said, I'd love to critique a UK article at ACR. I kinda know the styles of all the US and Canada editors who nominate articles at GAN/here/FAC, so I kinda know what I'm getting into when I review those articles. That's simply not the case with UKRD. Again, the only solution is to improve articles and see what happens! –Fredddie™ 23:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- I was referring to, for example, the presence of a prominent USRoads project template, perhaps you could explain that? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- A pinch of good faith goes a long way. When this page was set up, WP:USRD was the only project to have a navbox like that. There certainly was not any conspiring among American editors to control the ACR process by keeping it in place. If you know of another navbox that can be added, please add it without haste. –Fredddie™ 12:53, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- "A pinch of good faith goes a long way." Indeed. Please show some, as did I. I made no mention of "[conspiracy] among American editors to control the ACR process". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- We could probably go on and on ad nauseum about whether or not we're really assuming good faith when we say we are, but I think it would behoove everyone I stop here. –Fredddie™ 23:14, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- "A pinch of good faith goes a long way." Indeed. Please show some, as did I. I made no mention of "[conspiracy] among American editors to control the ACR process". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- A pinch of good faith goes a long way. When this page was set up, WP:USRD was the only project to have a navbox like that. There certainly was not any conspiring among American editors to control the ACR process by keeping it in place. If you know of another navbox that can be added, please add it without haste. –Fredddie™ 12:53, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- I was referring to, for example, the presence of a prominent USRoads project template, perhaps you could explain that? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with Floydian here. If you look at the number of GA-and-above articles under USRD compared to all the others, it shouldn't be shocking that ACR is slightly US focused. Now, that being said, I'd love to critique a UK article at ACR. I kinda know the styles of all the US and Canada editors who nominate articles at GAN/here/FAC, so I kinda know what I'm getting into when I review those articles. That's simply not the case with UKRD. Again, the only solution is to improve articles and see what happens! –Fredddie™ 23:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- WP:HWY is the global projects... but USRD is by far and large more active than the others combined, so when the ACR process was merged, their editor presence obviously is the greatest. The only solution is improving articles! - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 22:57, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- Ask Floydian why Ontario Highway 401 is at HWY/ACR then. Tomoebe will be bringing A1 (Croatia) there at some point as well. Imzadi 1979 → 21:54, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- That appears to have a US focus. Is there a globalised equivalent, or is the impression given false? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:32, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
If UKRD, CRWP and HWY develop similar navboxes, they'll be added in due course. If you look in the "Assessment section" of the template, it has a link to WP:HWY/ACR, which is why it was placed on the page in the first place. Imzadi 1979 → 21:18, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- It would probably be a good idea to make a nav for WP:HWY, then just have the nav from USRD linking to WP:HWY/ACR, but not on the ACR page. Ideally a HWY navbox would have links to USRD, CRWP and UKRD. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 22:23, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- I just rebuilt and expanded the HWY navbox, so all of the subproject and such are linked, meaning a reader who clicked the ACR link in the USRD navbox still has a way to click back to the USRD project, which is why the USRD box was placed on the page. Imzadi 1979 → 23:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- To be fair, ACR is not a requirement for FAC. You're welcome to take articles right to FAC. But ACR is a venue where road editors go over each article with a fine-toothed comb and address any issues that may cause a failure at FAC. So you do it at your own risk. --Rschen7754 23:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- I just rebuilt and expanded the HWY navbox, so all of the subproject and such are linked, meaning a reader who clicked the ACR link in the USRD navbox still has a way to click back to the USRD project, which is why the USRD box was placed on the page. Imzadi 1979 → 23:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Amendment of scope
I'd like to widen the scope to explicitly include all UK road infrastructure articles - the specific area of extension is road tunnels and road bridges, the latter of which is not AFAIK a child of the Roads in the United Kingdom category tree. Indeed, I'd like the scope to be written without reference to a specific folder tree, along the lines of "UK roads and road-related infrastructure, legislation, organisations, etc." Any objections or thoughts? thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:08, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- Why include bridges when WP:BRIDGES covers them very well as is? WP:USRD, WP:CRWP and WP:HWY pretty much only cover road tunnels but not bridges because there isn't a tunnels project but there is a bridges project. Imzadi 1979 → 23:16, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- Because they're part of the UK road infrastructure. They are, all, short sections of UK roads. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- The danger with including bridges is there's a large structural engineering component of the article that you have to write as well. In the US and Canada, the bridge article focuses on that, and the highway article focuses on the road. --Rschen7754 23:50, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- Which is the key difference at work and why the other projects have decided not to assess/tag them. It's not saying that USRD project members don't work on bridge articles, just that USRD has decided that the structural differences between a good highway article and a good bridge article are sufficient to impede the type of collaboration the highway project does. Then USRD doesn't have to attempt to duplicate efforts that the bridges project has already done. Imzadi 1979 → 23:58, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- Better IMO that both focus on their respective interests in the common article. Arguably most bridges have profound implications for the road transport network - think Skye or Humber or Severn. They are funded and maintained by highway authorities. WPBridges can look after their structural attributes, but is arguably only minimally concerned with the roadiness of a road bridge, but very concerned with the bridgeness. Many eyes make bugs shallow, etc. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:08, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
- Yet the on the flip side, the 5.0-mile-long (8.0 km) Mackinac Bridge, the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere, built to connect Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas and replace the state-run car ferries across the Straits of Mackinac... not USRD. There isn't much "roadiness" to it other than the fact that it carried first US 27 and now I-75 over the straits. The rest of the article is all bridge. I understand your point that road bridges have impacts to the highway systems, but those impacts should be mostly covered in the articles on the impacted roadways, even if duplicated in the bridge articles. The crossover isn't enough, IMHO, to warrant double-tagging articles that don't fit the rest of the project's mould. Imzadi 1979 → 00:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
- Oh, and yes, many eyes are good for some things, but tagging an article for a project does not guarantee any eyes will look upon it. You can't really guarantee eyes on an article until it hits a review forum like PR, GAN, ACR or FAC. Imzadi 1979 → 00:34, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
- The only guarantees I believe in are death & taxes. But it does happen that I'm attacking UK Roads stuff via the assessment table, so I'm a practical example of someone who will come across a UK road bridge article if it is tagged, and will not if it is not. Articles such as Bridge, Datchet could do with people like me to come cross it to recognise that it fails to mention which road goes across it, and has not utilised the
carries=
value in the infobox. I guess I'm seeing a small potential for good, and absolutely no harm. Are you seeing different? --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:46, 9 December 2011 (UTC)- I'm just offering another perspective here, which is that the structure of the articles is sufficiently different from the traditional content behind the various roads projects. If you want to work on road bridge articles, the presence or absence of a UKRD banner on the talk page won't stop you, and I suspect that it wouldn't stop others either. I work on stuff from List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan, and I even add them into upper-class articles, if you noticed with U.S. Route 2 in Michigan. Imzadi 1979 → 00:54, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
- The only guarantees I believe in are death & taxes. But it does happen that I'm attacking UK Roads stuff via the assessment table, so I'm a practical example of someone who will come across a UK road bridge article if it is tagged, and will not if it is not. Articles such as Bridge, Datchet could do with people like me to come cross it to recognise that it fails to mention which road goes across it, and has not utilised the
- Better IMO that both focus on their respective interests in the common article. Arguably most bridges have profound implications for the road transport network - think Skye or Humber or Severn. They are funded and maintained by highway authorities. WPBridges can look after their structural attributes, but is arguably only minimally concerned with the roadiness of a road bridge, but very concerned with the bridgeness. Many eyes make bugs shallow, etc. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:08, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
- Which is the key difference at work and why the other projects have decided not to assess/tag them. It's not saying that USRD project members don't work on bridge articles, just that USRD has decided that the structural differences between a good highway article and a good bridge article are sufficient to impede the type of collaboration the highway project does. Then USRD doesn't have to attempt to duplicate efforts that the bridges project has already done. Imzadi 1979 → 23:58, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- The danger with including bridges is there's a large structural engineering component of the article that you have to write as well. In the US and Canada, the bridge article focuses on that, and the highway article focuses on the road. --Rschen7754 23:50, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- Because they're part of the UK road infrastructure. They are, all, short sections of UK roads. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- I would be in favour of including these other infrastructure topics within the scope of this project, as the usual reason for these other structures is to carry the road. Also another thing to consider is that the UK, as a country, is a lot smaller (and denser) that the US and shouldn't really be looking at WP:USRD as a project for comparison, therefore I think we can take a slightly broader scope. And OK, tagging an article won't increase editing, but it certainly won't decrease it. Zangar (talk) 22:30, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, but the State of Michigan, which is approximately the same size as the UK and has its own highway project, WP:MISH, doesn't include bridges either. Ditto the other state-level subprojects under USRD. Imzadi 1979 → 22:38, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
- Yeah, that's why I included density (in terms of population), therefore generally for a denser population there is a greater need for, and reliance on, infrastructure that is in place; I note the UK is 6x more dense than Michigan and more dense than 46 states. But this is all essentially besides the point. In that the ultimate decider is that a WikiProject is allowed to define it's own scope (as per Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/WikiProject) and if members of a project feel like differing from parent/sister projects in terms of scope then they should be allowed to do so. Cheers, Zangar (talk) 23:05, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, but the State of Michigan, which is approximately the same size as the UK and has its own highway project, WP:MISH, doesn't include bridges either. Ditto the other state-level subprojects under USRD. Imzadi 1979 → 22:38, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
- Support A very sensible proposal; indeed, I'm surprised it isn't already so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:28, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Notability of road articles
Does anyone have any thoughts about any general level of coverage an article on a specific road should have in order to be notable enough to exist? To give a practical example, I AfDed A4289 some time back, as I didn't think a typical reader would recognise that number. What does anyone else think? --Ritchie333 (talk) 15:03, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- AFAIK, for the UK, A class roads are the equivalent to a U.S. Highway in America, or a provincial highway in Ontario. Since the government has selected these roads as being important, signing them, maintaining them, and ensuring traffic flows, etc... That in itself is a major indication of notability. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 15:13, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- No, it's more complicated than that. 'A' roads can be trunk (funded by the Highways Agency, Transport for Wales or Transport for Scotland for England, Wales and Scotland appropriately), primary (major routes between population centres, signed in green, funding is a mix of central government and local authority), or non-primary (local roads, not for long distance traffic, though central funding for maintenance is greater than 'B' roads). This leads to the somewhat archaic situation where the A303 road (3 digits) is significantly more important than the A32 road (2 digits). --Ritchie333 (talk) 15:36, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- Generally speaking, primary roads (green) should be able to stand up on their own. Any A roads with a white sign might need a little more help. B roads I wouldn't even waste my time with. Do you think regional lists (A roads in Greater London, for example) would be beneficial? Just to be clear, I am not advocating using the A roads in Zone 1 of the Great Britain numbering scheme series of lists for this; those seem more like link dumps than useful lists. Lists that I'm advocating (List of county routes in Rockland County, New York (1–38), for example) give you a place to say something about a route that might not be notable on their own. Another trick we use in the US is to add a
==Related routes==
section, which you can use to put a little blurb about a 1-to-2-mile-long offshoot from the main road. We use {{Infobox road small}} for, well, a smaller infobox for those blurbs. –Fredddie™ 00:21, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
- Generally speaking, primary roads (green) should be able to stand up on their own. Any A roads with a white sign might need a little more help. B roads I wouldn't even waste my time with. Do you think regional lists (A roads in Greater London, for example) would be beneficial? Just to be clear, I am not advocating using the A roads in Zone 1 of the Great Britain numbering scheme series of lists for this; those seem more like link dumps than useful lists. Lists that I'm advocating (List of county routes in Rockland County, New York (1–38), for example) give you a place to say something about a route that might not be notable on their own. Another trick we use in the US is to add a
- I'm not sure having a list of all A roads in London would survive an AfD to be honest - it would just be one long tedious list. Ask a man in the street where the B400 is and he'd shrug his shoulders, say it's Chancery Lane and that immediately becomes more obvious. There are a slew of articles with no reliable references on them yet - let's get what we have up to a good quality first. On a related note, UK roads are nothing like US ones whatsoever, so that's comparing apples with oranges really. --Ritchie333 (talk) 00:28, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
- It's not. Having been in both the US and the UK (as well as other European countries, and Costa Rica), and having studied roads around the world, there are superficial differences, but the road systems aren't so dissimilar that comparisons can't be made. --Rschen7754 01:41, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
- That's just your personal opinion. And what's Costa Rica got to do with this? --Ritchie333 (talk) 09:54, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
- I'd be willing to say that Trunk status there is somewhat analogous to National Highway System status here, although we don't change signage color to indicate that status. If a highway (or even a county road or city street) is on the NHS, it gets some funding from the federal government in addition to any state/county/city funding it would otherwise receive. M-6 (Michigan highway) is on the NHS, even though it's "just a state highway", and Interstate 75 Business (Grayling, Michigan), a business loop (!), is on the STRAHNET sub-system of the NHS as well. In other words, what I'm seeing is that the UK and the US have layered systems (M/A/B for the UK, Interstate/US/state/etc for the US) and even different statuses to prioritize funding. The details differ, but there are still the similarities. Imzadi 1979 → 10:49, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
- That's just your personal opinion. And what's Costa Rica got to do with this? --Ritchie333 (talk) 09:54, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
- It's not. Having been in both the US and the UK (as well as other European countries, and Costa Rica), and having studied roads around the world, there are superficial differences, but the road systems aren't so dissimilar that comparisons can't be made. --Rschen7754 01:41, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
- I'm not sure having a list of all A roads in London would survive an AfD to be honest - it would just be one long tedious list. Ask a man in the street where the B400 is and he'd shrug his shoulders, say it's Chancery Lane and that immediately becomes more obvious. There are a slew of articles with no reliable references on them yet - let's get what we have up to a good quality first. On a related note, UK roads are nothing like US ones whatsoever, so that's comparing apples with oranges really. --Ritchie333 (talk) 00:28, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Review of Transport#Roads within Ely, Cambridgeshire
(This may be the incorrect place so do feel free to move it to a more appropriate venue) Would a kind soul from this project please review the Transport#Roads section of Ely, Cambridgeshire as part of its peer review ahead of my proposed FAC? --Senra (talk) 15:26, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
- My 2p (what's that in metric?)....
- Wikilink "Roman road" with Roman roads in Britain Done
- "is documented" doesn't scan right - "has been documented" would sound better Done
- Wikilink to Bury St Edmunds should not be "Bury" - can be confused with Bury Done
- Is History of the County of Cambridge &c. the actual verbatim title? Yes, see History of the County of Cambridge &c.
- I'd put the sentence starting "Ely is on the north-south A10 trunk road " alongside the subsequent paragraph down - this then puts the ancient and modern route descriptions in separate paragraphs. Done
- Remove word "trunk" from above sentence. The A10 through Ely was detrunked in April 2001 and is no longer a trunk road. Done although this 'fact' may be notable in it's own right. I will consider adding prose to this effect
--Ritchie333 (talk) 10:03, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
- Much appreciated. So sorry I needed a reminder :( I hope my answers are satisfactory (the ticks are non graphical versions by the way) and I thought 2p was metric in comparison to £sd --Senra (talk) 18:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
Proposal to merge A3090 road with A31 road
I would like to propose a redirect + merge of A3090 road with A31 road on the grounds that the former is largely downgraded sections of the latter (go to SABRE Maps here and toggle between "Ordnance Survey" and "Historic OS Maps" to see), and the route description and history is basically the same. Your thoughts, please. --Ritchie333 (talk) 09:54, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
- That sounds good to me. You can use {{infobox road small}} for A3090 in a "related routes"-type section of the A31 article which is a pretty standard practice we've done in the US. (See M-44 (Michigan highway) which has M-44 Connector (Michigan highway) merged into the parent article as a subsection for an idea of what I mean. Another example would be U.S. Route 223 and its business loop in Adrian, Michigan.) Imzadi 1979 → 10:05, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
- Now done, using {{infobox road small}} as described above. There are a few others that could also be done (eg: A89 road - A8 road (Scotland)) - can one of you who's more savvy with lists and templates look into setting up a progress chart for these? --Ritchie333 (talk) 13:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
- It would have been nice if you had included a hint that you were about to do this on the A3090 article so interested parties got the opportunity to comment. Might I suggest this is done for A89 etc. Pterre (talk) 14:36, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
- Now done, using {{infobox road small}} as described above. There are a few others that could also be done (eg: A89 road - A8 road (Scotland)) - can one of you who's more savvy with lists and templates look into setting up a progress chart for these? --Ritchie333 (talk) 13:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
RFC on coordinates in highway articles
There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding the potential use of coordinates in highway articles. Your input is welcomed. --Rschen7754 01:29, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
- I have tried to follow the discussion, but it makes my head hurt. Sorry. Can you summarise what's going on in a short paragraph? --Ritchie333 (talk) 18:08, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- There has been a long standing dispute between the highways group and the geocoordinates group over placing coordinates on highway articles, either in the title or in the junction lists. The RfC hopes to get a wider input on what has been to this point a battleground for nearly 6 months. Some of the options presented include: no coordinates, because it is wrong to pick a point to represent a line; expanding the use of coordinates, because they are a benefit to our readers; choosing start and end coordinates only; choosing up to 10 coordinates; and keeping the status quo, probably untenable. A final idea that has come out is the use of shapefiles, which are a form of GIS data. These use a large list of coordinates to produce lines, areas, etc, and could be a possible alternative. Unfortunately our system and geohack offer no support for it at this time. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 21:38, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
DEFAULTSORT and standardised article names for roads
I fell over some road article or other yesterday and ended up doing quite a bit of tidying up - page moves and DEFAULTSORTs to get UK roads to be more consistent. But I'm surprised that your project page doesn't seem to outline what seem to be the standards:
- article title is "A123 road" (not "A123 Road"; not "A123 road (England)" unless disambiguation is needed)
- where disambiguation is needed it's "(England)" etc or, for cross-border roads "(Great Britain)"
- DEFAULTSORT is of form "1-0123" for A123, or "4-0043" for A43 (ie the first digit of the road number, then hyphen, then padded out so the numbers file correctly). It's a hyphen, not a dash.
I hope I haven't trodden on any toes around the project, but Category:Roads in England and Category:England road stubs both file a lot more tidily now. PamD 10:30, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Automated process for article assessment & insertion of WPUKroads templates on the talk page
I will shortly submit a request to have DodoBot tag and/or automatically assess articles for our WikiProject, as explained here. The intent is to ensure that {{WPUKroads}} tags are placed on the talk pages of all articles listed in Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Roads/Categories, inheriting quality measures from other wikiproject assessments where these exist, and setting importance=low. I'll take responsibility for rechecking importance once the bot has done its work. In deference to the ongoing discussion above I have not included any bridge categories. Please raise any questions or concerns regarding this suggestion here; assuming there are none after a week, Dodobot will feel itself free to undertake the work. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:25, 13 December 2011 (UTC) refactored --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- I despair. I really do. I honestly think nobody except for a handful of people really care about any of this. Do we really want to have heated debates about what category something goes on, or do we want to add useful content with reliable sources (such as this)? This was the first UK roads article I had a look at, and spotted two broken links that anyone could have noticed if they'd clicked on them. Please, please, I beg of you in order to make Wikipedia a better place, to go and improve these articles yourself, not simply tag them, as that just smacks of "I want somebody else to do the hard work for me". You can get reliable sources for dates and projects from The UK Parliamentary Archive at Hansard for a lot of things. I need to lie down now because I'm feeling depressed. --Ritchie333 (talk) 16:50, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
- I'll be taking that as no objection. Here's the thing: tagging talk pages to enable me to see what sort of quality of articles we have does not exclude or interfere with my ability to improve articles. You may choose to look up UK road articles by some other means - the many categories in Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Roads/Categories, for instance. I choose to look at them via the categories from Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Roads/Assessment. I hope the better description of the proposal which I've now provided above assuages your concerns. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with Tagish on this. He has to notify the project as part of the bot request (or just even common courtesy), so he did. As a side note, WP:USRD made an effort years ago to get all of the project's articles assessed, and works to keep the project fully assessed. The benefit is we can do things like the assessment table to see at a glance how the various states, territories, district and sub-topics compare in terms of quality. We use the WikiWork metrics as a means of comparing average quality on a six-point scale, but the table also lets us see what regions need attention for stub-expansion work. Full and accurate assessment, which this is, is different from tag-bombing articles that need references. It gives the project a "photograph" of how it's doing at the moment. Imzadi 1979 → 01:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- I've refactored my original post to make the proposal much clearer than it was. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- Well I've got no real objections as long as I don't personally have to do anything, which doesn't seem to be the case. But from my personal experience, putting all these big scary policies about tagging and making things really complicated is a good way to alienate newcomers. From my point of view I'd rather keep things lax and welcoming to other people who can contribute useful encyclopaedic content about the UK road network, and find reliable sources for it. As regards the state of the project, I think the gap of several months between my comment at the top of the page and this conversation speaks volumes of how generally people are interested.
- Incidentally, as a complete aside, what personally interests the pair of you about UK roads and what articles would you personally like to improve? --Ritchie333 (talk) 10:45, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- I tend to doubt that newcomers would be perturbed by a project banner on a talk page. Part of my intention in doing what I'm doing is to see what sort of interest can be generated in this project. You'll forgive me if I decline to engage with the "what articles" question, beyond saying "any that I fancy". --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:01, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- FWIW, Ritchie, I think it's more likely that we'll encourage people to work on UK roads articles by trying to foster a sense of community here, than by issuing what amount to challenges of the "prove that you actually have an interest in improving articles" sort. YMMV, and of course those few who work on UK roads articles and/or who are members of this project may in any event decline to engage. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with Tagishsimon: If someone creates an article about their local road/junction and then it gets tagged they see that there's a like-minded community that likes working on these type of articles, hopefully encouraging them to join and continue their work, knowing that there is wider support if they have any problems. This is what happened to me when I made my first main-space edit to A38 road all those years ago - I saw the project banner on the talk page, had friendly discussions with a member of this project and later joined. I can only see good in doing this, as it doesn't distract us from the work, other than the small amount of time it took Tagishsimon to set up the bot work request. Cheers, Zangar (talk) 14:26, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- There's a lot of "ifs" in that paragraph. Look, you would have a point if there were lots and lots of people editing and we needed some process to be easily identify who was doing what and where. But if you look at the project contributors, you'll see most of them have not contributed in some time. Indeed, this project page was fallow until a few weeks ago when these "admin heavy" discussions exploded out of thin air. I really think you're putting the cart before the horse. If you want to fiddle about with this stuff, knock yourself out, it just doesn't personally interest me.
- Tagishsimon, if you look on the project page, you will see a list of contributors to the project, most of whom have written a short sentence on what personally interests them on the subject. Why did you feel threatened when I asked your interests in an analogous fashion? Also, please indicate where I have not been civil and personally insulted you, and I will apologise and withdraw the comments. --Ritchie333 (talk) 10:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
- Incorrect or frankly nil parsing of "Incidentally, as a complete aside". I don't think I've thought you uncivil nor that you've insulted me. If I've given you a contra impression, I apologise & withdraw it. I think you were distinctly crabby about what seemed to me an innocuous suggestion, but that might have been as much poor phrasing in my initial post. I don't have a problem with crabby.
- Right now, I'm spending time on the quality assessment thing out of interest, and seeking to gauge whether there is an anything of a community of UK roads editors by fiddling around on this page and making suggestions for change to or improvement of the project page. There may be some incidental editing of articles along the way. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with Tagishsimon: If someone creates an article about their local road/junction and then it gets tagged they see that there's a like-minded community that likes working on these type of articles, hopefully encouraging them to join and continue their work, knowing that there is wider support if they have any problems. This is what happened to me when I made my first main-space edit to A38 road all those years ago - I saw the project banner on the talk page, had friendly discussions with a member of this project and later joined. I can only see good in doing this, as it doesn't distract us from the work, other than the small amount of time it took Tagishsimon to set up the bot work request. Cheers, Zangar (talk) 14:26, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- FWIW, Ritchie, I think it's more likely that we'll encourage people to work on UK roads articles by trying to foster a sense of community here, than by issuing what amount to challenges of the "prove that you actually have an interest in improving articles" sort. YMMV, and of course those few who work on UK roads articles and/or who are members of this project may in any event decline to engage. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- I tend to doubt that newcomers would be perturbed by a project banner on a talk page. Part of my intention in doing what I'm doing is to see what sort of interest can be generated in this project. You'll forgive me if I decline to engage with the "what articles" question, beyond saying "any that I fancy". --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:01, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- Back when we set up most of the U.S. projects (2005-2007 era), one of our first goals was to tag every talk page to promote awareness about the project. Once people are aware of the project, it's easier to start collaborating. This was back in the days before the assessment system, so we didn't tag for that, but the PR was enough to get the project going. --Rschen7754 01:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- The problem is, there are already other sites going into in-depth discussion on UK Roads, where this isn't really any equivalent for the US. You need to be able to persuade the people who contribute to SABRE, CBRD, Pathetic Motorways etc etc to start contributing here. I'm not sure how you could do this. I'll do odds and ends as and where I can - eg: I created the body of A4123 road because I thought it was notable enough to deserve an article here. --Ritchie333 (talk) 14:55, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
- AARoads.com, for one. --Rschen7754 19:27, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
- That's a site for the US, not for the UK. --Ritchie333 (talk) 13:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, to show that there are sites discussing U.S. Roads, yet we've been able to get contributors. But the U.S. Roads project was started in 2005 - this sort of thing definitely doesn't happen overnight. --Rschen7754 15:55, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- What ideas do you have to encourage people from these sites to contribute? --Ritchie333 (talk) 10:38, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- Invite them! Of course, don't spam the whole site, and don't be obnoxious. But invite them to contribute! --Rschen7754 19:27, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, invite them! The worst they can do is say no. –Fredddie™ 23:39, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- You might be interested in these threads here and here where I have previously discussed the relationship between WP and UK Roads sites (generally in a positive way from my end :-/) --Ritchie333 (talk) 10:11, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, invite them! The worst they can do is say no. –Fredddie™ 23:39, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- Invite them! Of course, don't spam the whole site, and don't be obnoxious. But invite them to contribute! --Rschen7754 19:27, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- What ideas do you have to encourage people from these sites to contribute? --Ritchie333 (talk) 10:38, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, to show that there are sites discussing U.S. Roads, yet we've been able to get contributors. But the U.S. Roads project was started in 2005 - this sort of thing definitely doesn't happen overnight. --Rschen7754 15:55, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- That's a site for the US, not for the UK. --Ritchie333 (talk) 13:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- AARoads.com, for one. --Rschen7754 19:27, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
- The problem is, there are already other sites going into in-depth discussion on UK Roads, where this isn't really any equivalent for the US. You need to be able to persuade the people who contribute to SABRE, CBRD, Pathetic Motorways etc etc to start contributing here. I'm not sure how you could do this. I'll do odds and ends as and where I can - eg: I created the body of A4123 road because I thought it was notable enough to deserve an article here. --Ritchie333 (talk) 14:55, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
- If you build it, they will come. Most of the articles in Ontario that I have done BIG expansions of have seen 5 to 10 times the daily pageviews compared to pre-expansion. Once people see quality they will look to replicate it. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 15:17, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I submitted a request to DodoBot in this edit. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:15, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- Tagging also helps with the Article alerts function. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Six months on, the general fallowness of the project (again) speaks volumes about the (lack of) effect the tagging had, as I believed would be the case. We have to accept very key UK road enthusiasts have been alienated by Wikipedia one way or another, and need to do some serious soul searching and find a way to overcome this if we're going to make headway on this project. WP:WIHS is worth reading - I don't believe any CSD candidates were the cause of this but there are some interesting parallels. --Ritchie333 (talk) 14:13, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
- May I suggest that your posting is somewhat lost here. I had to search for it after initially zooming down to the bottom of this page, and even after looking at the TOC, it took me a little while to arrive here. Re-positioning in a new section as the latest posting would be my idea.
- Could you expand on your criteria for speedy deletion theory in relation to this project, please?
- Kind regards, -- Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 14:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Assessment after tagging has been carried out
Hazard-Bot has now completed the tagging of UK Road related articles, and seems to have performed it well, although I have noticed a few mistakes and problems in a few of the articles I have looked at that it edited.
- Firstly the article B1108 road has been tagged as NA-class importance, rather than a stub-class, as it has a stub tag in the article. Also Dartmoor crosses (which I'm not too sure whether it should be included in this project or not) was tagged as a stub-class rather than inheriting the B-class from WP Devon. Can we ask the bot to do a re-run and check its inheritances, rather than having to manually check these?
- One article, Brownhills (a town) was wrongly tagged, as the article was wrongly categorised - Tagishsimon has now fixed this and removed the offending category, but there may be more articles like this and may require editors to check through Hazard-Bot's contributions.
- Finally, I've seen that Five Pits Trail, a walking/horse/cycle trail that never uses any major roads, has been tagged wrongly IMO. Whether other editors agree with my assessment or not on this, I think there is a wider issue that the Template:UK-trail-stub places articles into Category:United Kingdom road stubs (hence the tagging), again I think this is wrong as some trails may never use a road. I've started a discussion on the issue at Template talk:UK-trail-stub, please join in. So there may be some manual work arising from this.
I've just pointed this out to hopefully garner any comments/suggestions on proceeding. Cheers, Zangar (talk) 15:50, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
- I think :
- B1108 road should redirect to B roads in Zone 1 of the Great Britain numbering scheme - the article doesn't tell you anything you can't infer from the list page, and I can't think of anything else that's notable to add to it.
- Dartmoor Crosses has nothing to do with roads directly
- Brownhills is a primary destination that the Highways Agency have selected as being significant enough to appear on Trunk Road signs, which may be where the confusion arose.
- Don't think Five Pits Trail belongs here, but if others disagree I'll go with consensus.
--Ritchie333 (talk) 16:24, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks Zangar. I'm very slowly working through the newly categorised articles. Will take me a few weeks, probably, but no rush. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
- Well done Tagishsimon! Glad to see someone's on it. I'll let you carry on with it, but if you're getting bogged down with it, let me know where to start and I can give you a hand. Thanks for the input Ritchie, I've detagged Dartmoor crosses now. Could still do with someone else's opinion at Template talk:UK-trail-stub on the categorisation. Cheers, Zangar (talk) 18:56, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
GAR
There is a GAR at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Delaware Route 17/1 that could have ramifications on the articles in this project. Dough4872 00:04, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Romano-British road names
The article Romano-British road names opens by noting that "There are no records of names used by the Romano-British for their roads, if they used names at all." Given this fact, and the fact that the article gives modern names for the roads, I suppose we're meant to read the title as "names of Romano-British roads" rather than "road names of Romano-British origin." Perhaps it could be more clearly titled "List of Romano-British roads" or merged with Roman roads in Britain. It may be that the article is intended to distinguish Romano-British roads from Roman roads in Britain. If that's the case, could it be simply titled "Romano-British roads", and explain how they are distinguished? Thanks for your help. --Amble (talk) 01:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
- This article has a single source that refers to one thing in the lead. The rest looks like original research, so I have boldly tagged it for deletion here. --Ritchie333 (talk) 10:53, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks. Sounds fine to me. All of the specific roads listed are already included in the list at Roman roads in Britain. --Amble (talk) 16:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)