Template talk:Infobox road small/Archive 1

Requests for Name and Suffix Capability
Great job on the Infobox road small. However, I have two suggestions/requests:

1. Name: There should be an option to include the non-number name of the road in the small infobox, such as Main Street or Old Liberty Road. This is especially important for unsigned routes. This would be an optional parameter. I tried adding this myself, but I could not figure out how to make the name prompt (e.g., Name: ) appear only when the field has a string.

2. Suffix: There are several states where there are state routes with suffixes after the number. In some cases, the suffix will be signed. In other cases, this suffix will not be signed, being only an internal disambiguation; the route will be signed unsuffixed, if it is signed at all. This may apply to prefixes as well.

Right now, if a suffix is placed after the number in the route field, the route shield will not appear if a shield for that particular suffixed route has not been created. Also, there is no way for the route shield to be unsuffixed but the text accompaniment to have the suffix.

Thanks for your help. Viridiscalculus (talk) 01:16, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Re 1: An alternate name parameter was considered at one time in the discussion at WT:USRD that led to this template's creation, but it was scrapped because most felt its addition would make the infobox less, well, mini. The alternate name param on infobox road is often abused/overused as well, and I suspect it would be here too.
 * Re 2: Do you have an example of one of these "unsuffixed" suffixed routes? More specifically, which state follows this practice? All of the states I know of that have suffixed routes sign them as designated. –  T M F 01:37, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Re: Re 1: That is understandable, and can be compensated for by making sure the name is in the prose description.


 * Re: Re 2: I am not sure about other states, but Maryland has many "unsuffixed" suffixed routes. While most of these are unsigned, there are several examples of recurring routes where they are signed unsuffixed but differentiated internally with suffixes, including MD 7, MD 18, MD 144, and MD 648.  For these routes, having separate small infoboxes for each suffixed route would be useful.
 * There is only one suffixed suffixed route: Maryland Route 835A. Viridiscalculus (talk) 01:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm reluctant to implement a suffix parameter that would resolve this issue because it could easily be misused in states (NY, VT, OK, MA, etc.) that sign their suffixed routes as designated and could thus result in malformed infoboxes. I'd rather install something in the Maryland-only side of the templates (specifically Infobox road/MD/shield MD) that would take care of this through a switch. That, of course, assumes that all of the suffixed routes for the numbers given above (except 835A) are signed without suffixes. –  T M F 16:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I have read this over and over, and I still don't understand the concept of an "unsuffixed" route. I need a picture.Confused.svg  It's been my experience, though, that all routes get, at minimum, a shield and a little blurb as if they were fully signed.  See Interstate Highways in Alaska for demonstration. --Fredddie™ 19:05, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Banner issues
While replacing instances of usban with this template, I noticed that the Temporary banner doesn't seem to work properly. At least it doesn't for this instance on Bannered routes of U.S. Route 60, where the old template brought up the banner just fine. Any thoughts as to why this one doesn't work? --LJ (talk) 01:16, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ Added to the banner template. --Fredddie™ 01:50, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Noticed another one: U.S. 66 Optional in Missouri. --LJ (talk) 02:03, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I added the optional type to the banner sub-template, but I have no idea what the plate's file name is. "Optional plate.svg" is the file name usban looked for, but that file doesn't exist. –  T M F 02:19, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Is there a South Carolina-specific truck banner image? In replacing shban on South Carolina Highway 75, this template produced a black-on-white truck banner (shban actually didn't show a plate here). By contrast, the business banner on South Carolina Highway 5 and the alt banner on South Carolina Highway 170 are both blue-on-white to match the newer shields. --LJ (talk) 21:15, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Fredddie™ 21:16, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Code update
Are there any objections to changing the template to this version? It updates the template to use Infobox, which allows a huge amount of complexity to be removed from here, as well as spacing everything out to make the source more readable. This should result in fewer errors in the future. Note that I am working on an updated, cleaned-up version of the subtemplates as well; I can develop these in a sandbox first if everyone wants. 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 02:17, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm aware, there were no errors with the previous version of the template. I also don't see any dire issues with the subtemplates as they are now. –  T M F 02:42, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Dinoguy, please discuss changes first. "If it's not broke, don't fix it" comes to mind in situations like these. I'm not really seeing much benefit, but to each their own.  Imzadi  1979   →   02:56, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * My concern when I saw it had changed was Dinoguy's lack of confidence that it would actually work, as seen in the edit summary (update with Infobox (pretty major update, but hoping nothing goes wrong)). When updating any template with more than one transclusion, you HAVE to make sure it will work before you make the change.  I just didn't see any evidence that this was the case, so I reverted. &mdash;Fredddie™ 03:20, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * "If it ain't broke..." doesn't apply to Wikipedia - not its articlespace, and not its templatespace. Just because there are no problems with the status quo doesn't mean there aren't benefits to changing that status quo, and if there's someone willing to invest the time to do so, they should be encouraged so long as their edits aren't detrimental. My update did come with benefits, foremost among them being vastly improved readability and reduced code complexity, which would ultimately result in fewer errors in future changes. This is the same reason I'm wanting to update the subtemplates. And concerning my edit summary, I am full aware of the ramifications of a mistake, but I am also a very experienced template editor and was quite confident that my change would not introduce any breakage - the template appeared fine on edit preview. However, regardless of the experience behind the editor, there is always a chance of something going wrong with an edit this major, hence my voiced reticence. 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 04:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I personally find the "new" code harder to follow than the "old" code. –  T M F 06:17, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I really don't see how you could. The spacing might seem a bit odd at first, but once you adjust to it, you should find it much clearer and easier to follow. 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 17:52, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I have reverted this change for now. Although I would support a change to using the meta-template infobox, there are clearly some concerns voiced here which need more discussion, and because I have also just reverted a required change to that meta-template which was added without any discussion. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:05, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I, too, would support migrating this template to the meta-template. Those of us who helped to write the template kinda feel cheated that we didn't get any notice that it was going to happen. &mdash;Fredddie™ 22:06, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not anti-updating to new code, but I didn't see the benefit here. Additionally, it required a controversial change to the meta-template. The discussion at Template talk:Infobox also seems to be advocating for bigger changes to this template, with which I don't agree.  Imzadi  1979   →   22:36, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Not looking at Dinoguy's code, I threw together a mockup of this template using the meta template. The code (seen here) looks pretty similar to Dinoguy's, controversial changes to the meta-template notwithstanding. &mdash;Fredddie™ 22:42, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify to everyone who's commented here, I originally started on this template per an IRC request to hide the image when it doesn't exist. This technically would only require changes to Infobox road small/shield and Infobox road small/banner, but in order to cleanly implement it would require cleaning those two templates up anyways, and at that point I figured I might as well give the other subtemplate and the main template a once-over as well. It was never my intention to go behind anyone's back on this; I simply didn't know the template was being actively supported, and apologize for not at least posting a note to the talk page that I was going to do the cleanup. =)

As to the metatemplate change, I have no preference to any particular layout on this template, but was trying to maintain the current layout to avoid complaints from anyone (you can see how that backfired ;P ). 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 03:00, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * And setting |shield=none hides the image as well. Who made the request? IRC is not a proper venue when requests should be made on-wiki.  Imzadi  1979   →   03:19, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * was the one who asked me to do it. It was on wikipedia-en-alerts, so it's not like no one else was aware of what was going on. 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 04:31, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Consensus is always made on wiki, on Wikipedia, not on IRC. --Rschen7754 04:34, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) Well, let me be blunt, but WP:USRD was faulted for "making decisions on IRC without discussion on-wiki" in the past. The same behavior was exhibited here. In the future, I suggest that parties wishing to create changes to templates bring ALL such discussion on-wiki. Several of us editors that help maintain this template are on IRC, but not that channel. (We're in #wikipedia-en-roads.) We should not be surprised with changes to templates without notice or discussion. The fact that others saw the request on IRC is irrelevant, that is NOT a proper forum for notice or discussion, only enwp talk pages are.
 * As a second point, there's a principle called Bold, Revert, Discuss. Betacommand should not have reverted Fredddie's reversion. He should have instead brought the proposed changes here for discussion. I'm frankly disgusted that it took 3 reversions to get the discussion going.  Imzadi  1979   →   04:42, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * As I said above, I wasn't aware this template was being actively maintained at first. I also don't know much of anything about the history of the various roads projects; certainly not anything they've gotten in trouble for. And I never asked Betacommand to revert; I was actually writing my original comment above to discuss the change when he reverted. 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 05:04, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

It should be noted that when a nonexistent shield is linked to, the red link is much a better attention-getter that the image is mislinked (by far the biggest reason such redlinks appear in articles) or deleted. In effect, it serves as an error message. If the image just doesn't display, one would probably assume that the person adding the infobox just didn't specify which shield to use, or perhaps that the SVG is not rendering properly, or has perhaps specified the wrong parameter. If I typo when making an article, the red link alerts me in preview mode that I need to adjust this before saving. I would probably be prone to overlooking it if the template just quietly failed to display the shield. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 03:43, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * A secondary point to make: jct was recently updated to hide the image redlinks, but puts that article instead into a tracking category. That way we can find what marker images are missing and create them.  Imzadi  1979   →   03:45, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * A tracking category would be trivial to add instead of simply hiding the images. At this point, though, I have to ask why you don't simply create metatemplates for generating the banner and shield templates? jct sounds like it comes close, but a separate template should be created for each one. This should allow for reduction of code both here and on Infobox road, if coded correctly, and allows for trivial reuse in other templates as desired. I would be more than willing to help code and implement these templates if you'd like. 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 04:31, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that half of jct uses subtemplates of infobox road. There is a lot of subtemplate reusage already.  Imzadi  1979   →   04:46, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Ensuring that pages which have missing shields can be tracked by the project is not the problem that I'm referring to—a tracking cat has been implemented. Rather, I am in need of making it obvious that an image is missing on the page, so that it can easily be spotted and fixed before saving the page. I'd like it to be glaringly obvious that a shield is missing, such that upon previewing the page, I can see that I typoed in the shield name or guessed the naming convention wrong. If the børked image simply disappears, I would likely overlook it and not fix it. Also, such an error can often be found on pages made by new and inept users, so finding one while perusing the encyclopedia rings a bell in a more experienced editor's head that the article should probably be given a second look for accuracy, spelling, tone, and such.


 * Currently, a red link to the shield serves the purpose of flagging an error admirably. I guess if you want to program in a "Call Attendant—Shield File Not Found" error or something to make it more user-friendly to readers, you could, but it'd hardly be worth the effort. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 04:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Imzadi1979: that is part of the point to creating such metatemplates: I suspect that many of the subtemplates of could be greatly simplified (but I could be dead wrong; I haven't actually looked through any of them), and moving to a metatemplate would be a good time to look at that simplification.
 * Scott5114: at this point, I have no intention of simply removing redlinks - in fact, I don't intend to make any other changes until a consensus forms here for said changes. Based on your arguments, though, hiding the redlinks would be a bad idea. And I wasn't suggesting adding another tracking category; the one that already exists could be very easily reused. 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 05:04, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, I have browsed Wikipedia with images disabled on my computer for over 3 years. The red link can be seen. A missing image looks no different than an image that should be there. --Rschen7754 05:06, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Re: metatemplates: they exist. You just want them under other names. jct uses the subtemplates of infobox road which came first. This template here is the newest of the three, and reuses the existing templates. They might not be renamed to "meta names" because they haven't needed it. Please don't comment here telling people they should change templates you haven't inspected yet.  Imzadi  1979   →   05:30, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I never said "you have to create metatemplates". I was giving my thoughts based on my experience with other templates, which obviously may or may not apply perfectly to this set of templates. Besides that, I said above that I would be willing to help with them should you guys decide to look at splitting them out/creating them. 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 16:16, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any problem with you attempting to make a meta-template backend for Infobox road, so long it's done in a sandbox. I know it's been tried before, in sandbox, and it's a royal pain. &mdash;Fredddie™ 22:36, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

US business routes in Arkansas
The images for business routes in Arkansas don't show up. The images are in the form File:US 63B.svg...maybe this is the issue?  Brandonrush   Woo pig sooie!  06:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Replaced by
How about adding a replacedby option on this template. The templates used at List of Primary State Highways in Washington could really use this. It could be designed to enter one, two, many, or simply the word "multiple". (I would figure that this should refer to the highway's general replacement, ie, US 99 replaced by Interstate 5, and not the exact routing) D O N D E groovily   Talk to me  22:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Most requests to add extra items to this template are normally rejected; the consensus has been that if we added much more, the small template wouldn't be so small anymore. The data you'd add in that parameter should be in the prose, and in cases like M-76 (Michigan highway), which was replaced by Interstate 75 in Michigan, infobox road doesn't contain such a thing.  Imzadi 1979  →   22:46, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Idea to make IRS even smaller
This infobox is pretty good at minimizing space, but I think we could make it even more space-efficient by moving the title text to the right of the shield, so we can use the empty space currently present on either side of the shield. That will make the infobox a little shorter, making it match well with the shorter entries that it is often paired with. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 09:05, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Support why not. But please crosspost to WT:USRD and other affected projects. --Rschen7754 06:57, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Neutral, leaning oppose for cases like "Business Interstate 75", that name could be long enough, next to the shield marker, to wrap to a second line...  Imzadi 1979  →   07:34, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I would think having the line break would actually be a good thing aesthetically (as long as the number isn't orphaned), as it would visually counterbalance the shield by making it more symmetrical. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 11:45, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't recall seeing this discussion last year. I would have to see a mockup to be swayed. –Fredddie™ 04:52, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd support an option at least, either to escape it or to cause it, depending on the consensus overall. There are likely cases where a chunk of city road is covered by a highway article, gets an IRS, but that particular section is concurrent with two other routes (hard to explain the concept I'm thinking of, but hopefully that will do). In those cases (i.e. more than one shield), the name is better on a separate line. -  Floydian  τ ¢  05:08, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Utah Suffixed Interstate
Using IBRs in Interstate 84 in Utah, normally UT uses "big" shields, but the I-80N shield we have is a "normal" shield, can someone tweak the coding to show the File:I-80N.svg or preferably have someone throw together a UT state-version of I-80N (non-neutered) like this? --  Admr Boltz  15:54, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Parameter naming
Why does infobox road use  and   but this template use   and  ? Kinda silly... when this gets rewritten in Lua perhaps it should accept both. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 08:04, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd be ok with just changing it and doing an AWB run to correct the depreciated  and   --  Admr  Boltz  22:25, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Alternate text
Looking at https://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/altviewer.py?page=Interstate_275_(Michigan), infobox road is adding appropriate alt text for the marker at the top of the infobox, yet this template is not. The fact that the Altviewer is now showing the marker as missing alt text may be related to this change earlier this year that allows the marker to link to its file description page. Either way, this could be an issue at future Featured Article/List Candidacies if reviewers get back into the habit of requesting alternate text.  Imzadi 1979  →   05:03, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

KML handling
brought up the idea of including KML in this box at WT:USRD. I think this is a great idea since we can eliminate the extra box and condense it down into one line of this one. To economize on space, I think a rational way of doing it would be to put "KML" in the left column and the text "view · edit · Google · Bing" (with appropriate links) on the right. To populate this row, I would suggest a  property that takes the title the KML is stored under as its argument (since IRS will mostly be used on "List of..." type articles and as a subsection of longer articles. Thoughts? —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 20:46, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Support—sounds good to me.  Imzadi 1979  →   20:50, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Two quick thoughts: the content could be a second line under the output of location, thus borrowing the "Location:" label on the left. Second, I wonder if we could get the globe to appear in that line with the pop-up WikiMiniAtlas.  Imzadi 1979  →   20:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * If it's own line, the label should be "Route map:", since KML is a bit esoteric.  Imzadi 1979  →   20:57, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. I think it would be easiest to embed Attached KML at the bottom of IRS. Whether or not we just enable embedding or do something like Scott proposes, I'm all for it. –Fredddie™ 20:52, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Embedding might not work simply because it uses and not . –Fredddie™ 22:41, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Support – I like Scott's proposal. Would we use the title display for anything, or would everything be inline? T  C  N7 JM  20:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The title should be disabled, because they would all pile on top of each other otherwise, which is an illegible mess. –Fredddie™ 20:57, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't necessarily mean using them for the same thing Attached KML does. I was thinking something more along the lines of the WikiMiniAtlas, which Imzadi1979 mentioned. Perhaps somehow rigging the WMA to show all the KMLs at once? T  C  N7 JM  21:00, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems silly to show all at once, since the choice of which routes to cover on the list is a bit arbitrary. It would be cool to be able to overlay all routes though, for inclusion on the main state list. --NE2 21:51, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that. Disregard. T  C  N7 JM  22:28, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Issue with unsigned highway
I used the none syntax to override the marker on Business routes of U.S. Route 127 in Michigan, but it's not working. Instead of dropping the marker, I get the bolded word "none" in its place.  Imzadi 1979  →  17:31, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Fixed with [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_road_small&diff=693480797&oldid=677448090 this edit]. -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:07, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you!  Imzadi 1979  →  21:46, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Map parameter
Would a  parameter be appropriate for the Infobox small? I was thinking this would be used if say an article with a map already created got merged into an RCS list or for business route lists and show where the route is. —Mr. Matté (Talk/Contrib) 12:06, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking not. This template was designed to be compact when used repeatedly on RCS lists or to be compact when used in other sections of a parent article, and I think that a map would defeat that goal.  Imzadi 1979  →   04:02, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Maint parameter?
Could we get a maint parameter? It'd be useful for the Mexican highway articles where one designation includes roads with multiple operators, like Mexican Federal Highway 2D or Mexican Federal Highway 15D. Raymie (t • c) 03:59, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * What say you, ? This would make some of those long Mexican highway articles better. I can't put most of them in the main template because a road can have multiple operators. Many have at least three. 15D has five and could soon have six, seven or even eight. Raymie (t • c) 02:51, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the smaller box is to be, well, smaller. At some point, if a situation is so complicated, it doesn't belong shoehorned into an infobox and needs to be fully explained in the text.  Imzadi 1979  →   02:55, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Understandable. It would just be easier as many of the articles have Infobox road small for each segment, which makes sense as that's how the SCT reports mileage as well. Raymie (t • c) 03:17, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

A bug relating to this template
For some reason, whenever I put this parameter, state=IL, and then the rest of it, the name just got cut off.--AlphaBeta135 (talk) 16:19, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 * example, please?  Imzadi 1979  →   16:23, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Example from Special routes of U.S. Route 40:


 * --AlphaBeta135 (talk) 16:40, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 *  Imzadi 1979  →   16:49, 12 July 2020 (UTC)