Talk:List of former Maryland state highways

Merging Maryland Route 269
The article Maryland Route 269 should be merged into this list. The article includes little enough information that it can be included here. It would be more appropiate for it to be here because it is a decommissioned highway. Dough4872 02:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The dearth of information for other decommissioned highways does not disqualify the inclusion of those that actually do have something worth writing about. Allowing MD 269 to have its own article would simply result in a proliferation of other articles. Besides, if this article gets too long it can always be split into numbering ranges (i.e. 01-99, 100-199, 200-299, etc). -TheOneKEA
 * I also agree with merging but on one condition: if there is a wealth of information of MD 269, it merits its own article; otherwise merge. ( [ →] zel zany  - new age roads) 23:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, too! -- Bossi  ( talk • gallery • contrib ) 00:16, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Reforming this list
I have some ideas for how this list should be reformed and modernized. Are there any other proposed guidelines or ideas on what to do here?  V C  21:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * All former Maryland routes should be included in this list.
 * In the unlikely situation a route is notable enough and has enough information to warrant its own article, that route can have an article with a summary here and a main template link, similar to how it works in the List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile.
 * Each route would have a level 2 header (i.e., ==MD 41== and an instance of undefined.
 * For route numbers that have had more than one previous route, each will have separate headings, with the years active in parentheses in the header.
 * If this list becomes excessively long, it can be split into multiple articles like the List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile.
 * If the path of a former route is now followed solely by an existing route (for instance, former MD 41 is a part of MD 135):
 * There should be a main template at the top of that route's section linking to the article of the current route.
 * There should be a redirect to the current route. For instance, MD 41 should redirect to MD 135.
 * If the path of a former route is now followed by multiple routes, there should be no redirect; rather, the page should be a set index article with links to current route A and current route B.
 * Reliable sources should be used when possible, and links to self-published sources like mdroads.com should be replaced or eliminated if possible.
 * Based on high amount of short and mostly unnotable former routes that Maryland has, I think a list similar to List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile can be made to include all former routes, split into five groups (2-199, 200-399, 400-599, 600-799, and 800-999). In addition, all former routes should be listed on the List of Maryland state highways lists. If a former route has enough information to warrant its own article, like Maryland Route 475, it can have its own standalone article in addition with a section on the former route list with a hatnote to the main article. If a former route is now part of another route, like Maryland Route 280 is a part of Maryland Route 213, then that former route should redirect to the article of the route is it now part of while still being included in the list. In MD 280's case, Maryland Route 280 would redirect to Maryland Route 213 while MD 280 would also be mentioned in the former routes list with a hatnote to Maryland Route 213. All other former routes should redirect to the appropriate place in the list and be covered there. If a former route was reused, as is the case with Maryland Route 41, then the former route link should be titled Maryland Route 41 (former) or using dates. In addition, the article on the present Maryland Route 41 should have a hatnote pointing to the former route.  Dough 48  72  22:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Good point about MD 41 and hatnotes for numbers of both an existing route and a former route. I sometimes forget which routes have been previously used or which numbers are on their second life. For numbers that have been decommissioned more than once, I do not think we need to create redirects like Maryland Route 71 (1927-1955) and Maryland Route 71 (1956-1959). No one is going to use those search terms, so creating a set index article at Maryland Route 71 or a redirect to the former route list is good enough. Like with the list of routes <1 mile, I would like to do a survey and see how many of these routes there actually are before deciding whether and how to split the list into subpages. I am not keen on including the former routes in List of Maryland state highways, but I am not outright rejecting the idea either; I just need some convincing. I also disagree about MD 475 having its own article. I know I wrote the article, but now that the route is no more, I do not think it merits its own article.  V C  15:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * How should we cover routes like MD 71 or MD 149 that have had more than one incarnation? Should we just list all the incarnations under one section or split into two sections? In the case of Maryland Route 71, a set index page linking to U.S. Route 301 in Maryland and Maryland Route 194 would work along with coverage in the list. For Maryland Route 149, one of the incarnations is covered in Interstate 695 (Maryland) while the other would be covered in this list. It would also help to mention that not all former routes are yet covered on Wikipedia. We need to increase our coverage on Wikipedia in order to decide how the list needs to be split. MDRoads.com can be used as a starting point in identifying former routes while the coverage on here is referenced to reliable map sources.  Dough 48  72  18:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * We should be sure to distinguish between redirects and coverage in this list. For MD 71, we should have a set index article with links to US 301 and MD 194; and two entries in the list with years similar to what I proposed in my last comment. For MD 149, we should have a set index article with links to I-695 and the MD 149 section of the list; and two entries in the list. Every former route should have a section in the list. The point of the survey is to get ballpark figures of how many former routes there are total and within certain number ranges. Since the survey is likely going to pick up 90% of former routes, I think we can split the list based on survey data and it will be unlikely we need to split it again later.  V C  18:32, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Based on what I have seen on MDRoads, the amount of former routes seem to be evenly distributed. Therefore, I think it would be reasonable to split into groups of 200.  Dough 48  72  18:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Survey
I did a somewhat informal survey of MDRoads, with a few additions on what I have seen elsewhere. Note that the totals for the 600s and 700s are probably 10-20 too low because there are clusters that MDRoads has not filled in, such as 682-699. So the actual total number is probably in the low to mid 400s. Maybe you see it differently, but this does not look like an even distribution to me.  V C  19:35, 30 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It seems to be even for the lower groups of 100s but becomes lower toward the 800s and 900s. So where should we put the breaks at then?  Dough 48  72  00:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I would put the breaks at 200, 400, 500, 600, and 700. If it turns out later there are a large number of sections for routes in the 700s, we can split that set from the 800s and 900s. That being said, this list only has a size of about 25K at the moment. I think we should wait to split the article until the list gets to at least 80K in size. Right now, many of the sublists will have very few sections. I also want to see what the average size of each section will be once the sections are expanded with more information, more references, and infobox road small.  V C  18:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * At this time do you think it would be appropriate to reformat the list to use IRS to see what the future lists will look like?  Dough 48  72  23:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Jerusalem
While scanning for typos I found the mispelled redlink Jersualem, Maryland in the MD 54 section. Should that be Jerusalem, Baltimore County, Maryland, or is this a different location? -- John of Reading (talk) 15:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Fixed link.  Dough 48  72  00:50, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned references in List of former Maryland state highways
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of List of former Maryland state highways's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Baltimore City HLR 2005": From Baltimore:  From List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile (2–699):  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 01:44, 18 January 2014 (UTC)