Template talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Archive 1

Problem with the multi-state change
With nested projects that are collapsed, without a state you now get a RedLinked title that says "No State abbreviation given WikiProject". See Talk:U.S. Bicycle Route 1 -- KelleyCook 21:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There's also Talk:Utah State Route 279. Unless these bugs are fixed soon, the changes should probably be reverted for now. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 03:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Maps
As part of the upgrade tonight, the parameters "mapneeded" and "maps" were consolidated into one parameter, "hasmap". I am aware that this breaks all articles that currently use the other two parameters; AWB runs have been planned to correct this issue. Your patience is welcomed. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 08:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's come to my attention that there's been a bit of confusion regarding the map parameters. The states are being converted alphabetically, and I just finished Georgia. In the meantime, if you need to change the parameters, use whatever system the state currently is using. The bot is Rschen7754bot if you are interested. I'll post status updates here occasionally. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Status updates

 * Currently, Iowa is being done. Interstates and U.S. Routes will come last. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Maryland is currently being done. I will likely be botting until 1 AM Pacific tonight. It is estimated that we will be done by tomorrow night Pacific if not earlier. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Once Michigan is done I'm breaking for the night. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 07:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Redirect and Disambiguation assessment code was added by Ebyabe master son T - C 16:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm starting up again with Minnesota. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 18:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Missouri is being done right now. After this, I will be taking a break of a few hours. Completion may be later than tonight. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 19:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Apparently my bot got stuck and I never finished Missouri. I'm taking care of that now. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 21:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Letting Nevada finish as I leave for an hour or so. Hopefully the bot won't break. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 22:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Returned. Doing New Hampshire. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 00:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * After several starts and stops, doing North Carolina. County routes will be done at the very end. My guess and hope is to have this done by evening tomorrow. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Finished Ohio, beginning Oklahoma. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I am going to bed, PA is finishing and I'll let it go. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 07:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Back. Finishing PA. Will begin RI next. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 16:52, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Currently doing Texas. Will be breaking at 3 PM Pacific to do the newsletters. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * All done! --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 06:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Shield parameter
What about adding a shield parameter for articles needing a shield and having those dumped into a cat, much the same as the map parameter? --Holderca1 17:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Not a bad idea. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 19:06, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I say go for it. It'd be very useful, methinks.  --Son 22:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I have added it, a pass through parameter just needs to be added to all the state templates. --Holderca1 14:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Infobox needed parameter
Would you think this param is necessary?  master son T - C 14:58, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea to me. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 22:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Parameter changes
In the next few days, unless there's any objections, the "hasmap" and "hasshield" parameters will be changed to "needs-map" and "needs-shield", respectively, to match the "needs-infobox" parameter. Yes, this will require flipping the values of the parameters (yes to no and vice versa), but bot/AWB runs are in the process of being scheduled to make this change. For those interested, the reasoning behind changing hasmap and hasshield and not needs-infobox is that needs-infobox is a standard parameter across Wikipedia and is supported by the AWB assessment plugin. Therefore, it makes more sense to change the other two to match. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 06:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Type parameter
You can now say type=I or Interstate for Interstates or type=US for U.S. Routes; if you include state= it gives two banners, the second one smaller; if you don't, it uses the standard I/US banner as if you did state=I/Interstate/US. If this all works fine it should be added to the documentation in a few days. --NE2 14:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I tested it on Talk:Interstate 43 (intrastate to WI). It looks good and captures assessment for both projects. We should also set a guideline to apply this to only state detail articles when writing the instructions)  master son T - C 16:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * On a two-state Interstate, two templates with state=A and state=B/type=I are probably better than three. I just applied this to Talk:Interstate 76 (west); what do you think? --NE2 19:34, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I like that.  master son T - C 20:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Portal DYKs
Since this template tracks the portal's selected article, how about a parameter if an article had a portal DYK? Imzadi1979 (talk) 05:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Interesting... --CG was here. (T - C - S - E) 03:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

"needs-map=no" not as advertised
The template documentation says "if no, articles are added to Category:U.S. Roads project maps task force articles". This isn't happening right now (simple to verify as Category:U.S. Roads project maps task force articles is empty). Looks like a simple fix to make, and I'd probably try it myself, but the template is protected. DeFaultRyan (talk) 23:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * That was actually removed a while ago after discussion, since the category seemed useless. --NE2 07:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, there is still an empty category page for the articles flagged as "yes". Category:U.S. Roads project maps task force articles. I was hoping this feature could work because I wanted to go through articles that had maps, and verify that the map images were tagged and categorized properly over in Commons. DeFaultRyan (talk) 23:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah - should give you the same list. --NE2 23:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Request
Please replace the text " This article was the selected article of the U.S. Roads Portal in ." with "This article was the selected article of the U.S. Roads Portal in }. " This will cause the aricle's entry as selected article to be linked where the month and year is displayed.--CG was here. (T - C - S - E) 03:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Please only semiprotect
Please change this to semiprotection so I can work with it; thank you. --NE2 07:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Sorry, but with over 12,000 transclusions, I can't justify opening this up. You're welcome to experiment in a sandbox and port any good modifications to the main template via .  Or you could run for RFA :D... Happy‑melon 13:38, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a talk page template... --NE2 18:12, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: It's also transcluded on over 12,000 pages. One bad edit would break a lot of pages, and the opportunity for vandalism would be great indeed. You could sandbox a copy of the template and work on it, if you wish, or propose specific changes here. Concur with the decline of this request. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 20:54, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I've added to the doc page to provide you with easy links to where you can test and changes you want. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 03:05, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

So much for being able to help here. --NE2 03:59, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Request
Is it possible to add a  parameter to the template by copying and pasting the following code? Thanks. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  17:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Request
Please copy and paste the following code:

This will cause the aricle's entry as selected article to be linked where the month and year is displayed. ĈĠ ☺ Simple? 18:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

A fix request for the needs-map category
editprotected

It was a nice addition to the U.S. Roads WikiProject/subtopic template to properly add a subcategories for the needs-map project based upon Road type and/or state. However, the code was left in the main template to still add the main Category:U.S. Roads project articles needing maps to every single needs-map=yes. This has put (at last count) 7095 articles in this category, almost every single one of which are at least in one other subdivided category, which is against WP:Categorization guidelines. So, I thought I'd put in a switch for only adding this category on the non-availability of one of the subcategories, but then I thought about these two points:
 * No-one is realistically going to make a map for a page that hasn't yet been categorized.
 * Every page gets categorized soon after the template is assigned.

Therefore, I concluded the easiest and most proper fix is to delete entirely the code adding the category from this template and leave it up to the /subtopic template.

Unidiff attached. For those who that don't understand: it simply says to delete the … stuff at the end of line 76. -- KelleyCook (talk) 14:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

--- U.S._Roads_WikiProject.orig   2008-09-09 09:46:57.449300700 -0400 +++ U.S._Roads_WikiProject   2008-09-09 09:48:05.996499700 -0400 @@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ | The map in this article is maintained by the Maps task force. |yes= | -| This article needs a map. Please work with the Maps task force to create and add a map to this article. +| This article needs a map. Please work with the Maps task force to create and add a map to this article. |na|NA|Na=}}}} |#default={{#ifeq:{{U.S. Roads WikiProject/articletest|class={{{class|}}}}}|no|| {{#switch:{{{class}}}
 * {{done}} BJ {{sup|Talk}} 06:23, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand this change; the guideline is presumably for article categories, and now pages like Talk:Metropolitan Parkway (Detroit area) and Talk:New York State Route 17 aren't in any map categories. --NE2 08:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

This is still somewhat of an issue; of the two linked examples, NY 17 is in a map category but Metropolitan Parkway still isn't. –  T M F 07:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

New image for template
I remember Rschen I believe saying he would like to have a picture of an Interstate shield, a US route shield, and a state route shield for use on USRD. I snapped this tonight. Ended up blurry (looked pretty good on the camera but traffic was heavy and I didn't want to spend any more time on the shoulder), so looks a little weird small. I plan to try and get a better one during the day if not this week then in mid-December. If you'd like, it's here. K.

-- M PD T / C 02:27, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

photo parameter proposal
I noticed that the template documentation asks editors to use the 'photo=yes' parameter of the template rather than using reqphoto. Unfortunately, the template does not add articles with 'photo=yes' to any subcategories of, which could expose them to more eyes of people who could collect and produce photographs for them.

I have a proposal: if the 'photo' parameter is set to 'yes', the template adds the article to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of roads in the United States. If it is set to anything else, the template will add it to the named category; for example, 'photo=Illinois' would add the article to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of roads in Illinois.

Any comments? My template-writing skills are a little intimidated by this template but I can give a shot at writing some code if it would help. Tim Pierce (talk) 12:57, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Asking for an admin to edit this template with the change I described above. I have implemented this feature on User:Twp/U.S. Roads WikiProject. You can see the changes I made to the current template at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ATwp%2FU.S._Roads_WikiProject&diff=286440302&oldid=286438592

I have tested the change by previewing a couple of different U.S. roads articles with "photo=yes", "photo=California" and "photo=Illinois" set to make sure that it added the correct categories to the page and did not damage the infobox formatting. Tim Pierce (talk) 14:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Think I've done it a bit better than you suggested. Can you check if it's working and if not I'll be back later? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey, pretty slick, thanks! Not a bad change at all.  I'll create categories for each state and update the documentation. Tim Pierce (talk) 23:59, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The code for this template is in quite a mess. I'd suggest updating it to use WPBannerMeta in the future. I might put a version in a sandbox and ask for comments. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem with WPBannerMeta is that it does not allow us to use our state= and type= parameters. This template is used for tagging for several related WikiProjects. This also does not allow us to do attention-elg=yes or needs-shield. --Rschen7754 (T C) 07:54, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The attention-elg and needs-shield are completely standard and not a problem to support. I admit that type will be a challenge but I'm confident I can do it. So basically it's a two-letter abbreviation of the state? I've made a start on the sandbox but of course it's by no means complete. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:05, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Please don't change the template; this is a solution to a nonexistent problem. --Rschen7754 (T C) 19:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry it's not. The code is a mess. One random example is Talk:Guam Highway 4. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem there is that the template we call to parse the two letter state abbreviation does not recognize Guam. Your template would have this problem too. --Rschen7754 (T C) 19:47, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

If it can be converted to WPBannerMeta and not lose any functionality, I'm all for it. However, I have my doubts that WPBannerMeta can support some of the unique features ("state", "type", etc.) that this template has. I've dealt with WPBannerMeta in the past, and without scratching its surface it seems limited in functionality. Granted, I've never really delved into it, so I don't really know what's possible or what isn't. –  T M F 07:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well I'm going to have a go. Obviously I'm going to work with you lot to make sure it does all that it's supposed to. A couple of questions at this stage:
 * Would it be satisfactory to have to types/states in vertical collapsed list, perhaps something similar to Template:Philosophy?
 * You seem to be using Needed-Class even though the category doesn't even exist. Do you want it? And there are three standard classes which you are not using currently: File-, Project- and Portal-Class. Would any of these be of interest? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It is not satisfactory to have types or states in a vertical collapsed list. They need to be in exactly the same format they are now. You also cannot call them task forces as they are not task forces. --Rschen7754 (T C) 17:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, keep in mind that states cannot be hard-coded into the template. Notice how the current template does not have states hard-coded into it. --Rschen7754 (T C) 19:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't this fall under the, "if it's not broke, why fix it?" school of things? Imzadi1979 (talk) 19:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, I think the template is fine the way it is now; it does not need to be changed. Dough4872 (talk) 15:03, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

What if?
If Rschen wants an I, US and SR in the pic then why not this one. Why do we need 4 US signs? Why do we need an I-BL? I-93, US-1 and SR-3. What would it look like? Like this: -Amlnet49 (talk) 21:06, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The template is fine. Just leave it alone. --Rschen7754 (T C) 00:14, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that photo is pretty cool, but actually the quality is not quite as good as the current one. Rschen I find your tone to be unnecessarily grouchy towards an editor who has suggested an improvement ... &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't say the other editor's tone is 100% cordial. Also, this editor has caused many other problems in USRD. --Rschen7754 (T C) 06:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah well, I don't know about any background. It just looked like a suggestion made in good faith above. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:35, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think any photo that's used for the template image has to have a landscape orientation instead of portrait. A portrait photo (one whose vertical length is longer than its horizontal length) will make the template box unnecessarily large vertically. –  T M F 07:17, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have not caused many problems! Amlnet49 (talk) 23:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Needless revert warring over New England articles, spamming people for your own wiki, suggesting needless template changes... --Rschen7754 (T C) 01:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, ok...this is not the place...-- M PD T / C 02:09, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

WPBannerMeta?
Perhaps it is time to upgrade the template to use WPBannerMeta. Also it'll be good to rename template to WikiProject U.S. Roads. SkyBonTalk\Contributions 19:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Read two sections up. --NE2 19:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Plus, there's something like 10K+ articles tagged using this template... I don't think I'd like that AWB run just to change the name... Imzadi1979 (talk) 00:38, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I support name changes, when the current name is unclear. But in this case it is obvious what the template is for, so I don't see any real advantage in following the canonical format. I am still planning to do some work on this template, but haven't done anything recently because (a) people didn't seem too keen and (b) I've been working on other banners. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Disambig-class
Can the category shown on the template for dab-class articles be changed from Category:Disambiguation-Class U.S. road transport articles to Category:Disambig-Class U.S. road transport articles? Dough4872 (talk) 00:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The line:

|Dab|dab|Disamb|disamb|Disambig|disambig|Disambiguation|disambig=

should be changed to:

|Dab|dab|Disamb|disamb|Disambig|disambig|Disambiguation|disambig=

This is the correct category name, and will prevent a red link from appearing in the banner on pages such as Talk:Nevada State Route 15. PC78 (talk) 23:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
 * &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

attention-elg parameter
Since USRD has decided to use the ELG standards for junction lists in addition to exit lists, would it be possible to change the text that appears when this parameter is used? Specifically, the text "This article's exit list has been marked as needing attention." should be changed to This article's junction list has  been marked as needing attention."

As there is conversation going on right now about revamping ELG, one of the topics being discussed is changing that guide's name to Manual of Style (road junction lists). I'm not sure if we'll be wanting to rename the parameter of this template to "attention-rjl" to match or not. Just wanted to bring that up to make folks aware. --LJ (talk) 22:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We should probably change the text, and add attention-rjl as an alternate version of the attention-elg parameter. --Rschen7754 04:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (ec) Rschen took the words out of my mouth, essentially. If both versions are in use, the template won't break on existing pages. Imzadi1979 (talk) 04:07, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) The category name needs to be changed too. Re the other issues, I support the text change and the addition of -rjl as a param. Eventually, the uses of -elg should be phased out, but since it's supposed to be a temporary parameter, I don't think it's necessary to change them at this time. –  T M F 04:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ is now the primary parameter for tagging junction lists as needing attention while  will still work as an alternate param. The text and category have both been changed to match as described above. –  T  M F 23:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

American Samoa graphic
I created new versions of the AS highways graphics. There is a blank version with clearer type now at File:American Samoa Highway blank.svg that can be used for the banner.  Imzadi  1979   →   08:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ Shield subtemplate changed to use the blank –  T M F 05:44, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Portal DYKs
Since this template tracks the portal's selected article, how about a parameter if an article had a portal DYK? This was originally proposed on June 5,  2008 with only one comment and no rejection or action.  Imzadi  1979   →   11:06, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. In addition, a parameter for selected picture could be added. &mdash;Fredddie™ 11:32, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't oppose that, but aren't most of our photos hosted on Commons, and therefore not tagged locally on en.wp? Is there a way to tag them locally even though they're hosted over there? So long as there is a way to make it work, then that has my support as well. In both cases, I hope that the parameter can hold more than one date, as we're potentially going to recycle hooks and articles for AFD presentations in the future.  Imzadi  1979   →   11:39, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * All commons files can have a local talk page as well. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:13, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

✅ Params for portal selected picture and portal DYK have been added as part of my massive code revamp. Other changes:
 * The assessment, article issue, and "featured venue" items have been rearranged and grouped together. The assessment items (quality and importance ratings, ACR, reassessment, and merge) are shown all the time while the other two items are contained within hide/show tables that will show by default if there are two or less members of that group or hide if there are three or more. If either group has no members, the group or groups will not show.
 * "sub", "mapdetails", and "attention-elg" are formally deprecated. "sub" was a short-lived component of the subtopic template, "mapdetails" has no real use, and "attention-elg" has been superseded by "attention-rjl". "mapdetails" has been replaced somewhat by "attention-mtf", which editors can use to flag an article's map as being non-compliant with the MTF standards.
 * "needs-map=no" now returns no message. It didn't make any sense to me to plug the MTF on every article with a map, particularly if that article's map wasn't MTF-compliant. After all, we don't plug the STF on every article with a shield.
 * Three new subpages have been created, the most noteworthy of which is Template:U.S. Roads WikiProject/class, a class mask. The other two are counters used for the hide/show trigger for the article issue, and "featured venue" groups.
 * Aside from the custom class mask above, this template now also uses the standard class, importance, and importance mask templates. These required that the wiki table markup be converted to HTML markup, which is why that was changed. At the same time, I also added the CSS classes used by WPBannerMeta, giving our template a more standard appearance. When this template is nested, its display is now identical to that outputted by WPBannerMeta. –  T M F 17:16, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Forgot this: params have also been added for states with selected article programs, namely NY, NJ, and PA. CA was already included in the template pre-rewrite. –  T M F 17:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Summary of my changes over the last day or so:
 * All instances of "sub", "mapdetails", and "attention-elg" have been eliminated; thus, the params and the associated tracker category were removed from the template.
 * There was a glitch in the template where the comments display would break WikiProjectBannerShell if no main section params aside from class and importance were passed into the template. This was resolved by taking WPBannerMeta's comments display and recoding it to resemble our existing display.
 * tags were added around the USRD articles without needs-map category so that the template itself would not be placed in the category.
 * A glitch with the issue counter involving needs-map was resolved.
 * Many of the uses of "mapdetails" that I eliminated involved someone posting that a map had an error. As a result, "needs-map=no" once again returns a message; however, it now points users to direct requests for map corrections to the MTF's request page. "needs-map=no" also moves the map information out of the article issues section and into the main section, since that's what I thought was the most logical location for it. Passing yes into needs-map or omitting needs-map entirely will still place the map information in the article issues section. –  T M F 18:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Note to those who requested a selected picture parameter: the template has been modified to allow the tagging of Commons-hosted images. Even though the display will show File-Class automatically, it is still necessary to specify "class=File"; the display and category were automated only so that the template would bypass the Needed-Class code for both areas. Using class=File is necessary to shut off the importance and needs-map rows. Additionally, the selected pictures category was tagged for CSD today for being empty; I declined it, but if it remains empty beyond today (now that the template works) I can't justify declining it again. –  T M F 19:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Renaming to WikiProject U.S. Roads

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus has been formed. I will leave the redirect in place but else everything else will stay the same. Admrboltz (talk) 02:32, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:U.S. Roads WikiProject → Template:WikiProject U.S. Roads &mdash; I think we should rename the template to WikiProject U.S. Roads, following the standards of the 99.99% of wikiproject templates. Standardisation has many benefits: Bots handle me easier, editors identify projects banners better. Let's please do it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Support - I would actually prefer to Spell out the U.S. as United States but other than that I agree. --Kumioko (talk) 12:56, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We can do that as soon as we rename the project too then. Current name is WikiProject U.S. Roads and the best is to follow that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:09, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah thats a good point. --Kumioko (talk) 13:28, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes follow the project name is best. No need to change all the existing templates, they will simply redirect, changes can be done on an as and when basis. Rich Farmbrough, 14:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC).


 * I hope you plan on consulting with the project before moving it. --Rschen7754 22:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose if it isn't broke, don't fix it. This has been discussed several times before and rejected each and every time. Will you be flooding our talk pages with a bot to change them? Probably not since there are 13,845 pages, templates, categories and files tagged with the project's banner. The proposed name already redirects here, so there's no need to change it. I don't care what 99.9% of the Wikiprojects do. You'll also notice that we don't use the meta template for the banner either. That's been rejected several times as well.  Imzadi  1979   →  14:50, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * BTW I wanted to let you know that although I supported the rename I understand your reservations about it. As an individual project its no big deal what the project or its templates are called but from a community perspective there are several reasons that the naming should be consistent including: It makes it easier for less experienced editors to find things like templates and wikiprojects, its easier for the bots and automoted tools to find and fix things if the programmers and tool builders dont have to consider 50 variations of a template name, its easier to manage for the project/crossproject when things are consistent. --Kumioko (talk) 15:52, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The only project that to support, or has ever supported, this template is USRD. Case closed. What do others have to do to this template from outside of the project? Nothing. (P.S. The proposed "new" name redirects here anyway.)  Imzadi  1979   →  17:22, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. Standardisation has tangible benefits, and a rename does not require existing transclusions to be "fixed". PC78 (talk) 15:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If you don't fix the existing transclusions, doesn't that negate the tangible benefits of standardization? Powers T 17:12, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Bot usually fix names while doing other things like adding more projects, assessing, etc. but nobody will run to solely rename templates. Some benefits of standarisation are that banners are easier recognised and can be merged using WikiProjectBannerShell, ordering in template categories doesn't need extra treatment, bot codes are simpler minimising possibility of errors. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:22, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * All previous attempts at merging into the metatemplate have been refused, as this template has features and functions that just can't be supported in the metatemplate at this time. As for ordering in template categories. it's called a sortkey, assuming that this is a valid reason for a rename (which alone it isn't). As I said above, no other projects have ever supported, or ever need to support this template.  Imzadi  1979   →  17:50, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I wasnt involved in the previous discussions but I find it hard to believe that they cant be incorporated. Most projects use the meta template and many use unique fields. It might be a pain to program but I have trouble believing it cant be done. May I ask for an example of a parameter that cannot be supported by the metatemplate? --Kumioko (talk) 18:26, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue is our stateN= and typeN= parameters. --Rschen7754 18:33, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Additionally, what about all of the various custom cleanup tags, the custom portal SA/SP/DYK and the subproject SA tags? Sorry, just too many things to be porting over.  Imzadi  1979   →  18:41, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Why all this talk about the meta template? That's not what we're discussing here. PC78 (talk) 01:39, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * See above: "Some benefits of standarisation are that banners are easier recognised and can be merged using WikiProjectBannerShell,..." that template is the metatemplate of which we speak. I think the project members here have all pretty much stated that 1) we don't want the metatemplate and 2) we don't want the current template renamed. In other words, for about the third or fourth time already, we're rejected your offers to "standardize".  Imzadi  1979   →  02:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You appear to be confusing WikiProjectBannerShell with WPBannerMeta. Two entirely different templates, and again, not the subject of discussion here. Please stick to the point in hand. PC78 (talk) 22:14, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I just copied/pasted what was above. Either way, I'm still opposed to all of the outside proposals here, be it renaming (the redirect exists yet no one wants to actually change the transclusions which means there is no benefit to the proposal at all) or the past previously simultaneously proposed rebuilding of the template. All USRD members here have either outright opposed the proposal or expressed such skepticism about it that it should be clear, we don't want it.  Imzadi  1979   →  22:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Per Banner_standardisation/data 1,250 projects use the standard "WikiProject foo" name and only 4 don't. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and two of those are WP:WPBIO and WP:MILHIST. The MILHIST one clearly failed, so there won't be consistency anyway. Template_talk:WPMILHIST --Rschen7754 18:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose still hasn't been shown why this is necessary. --Rschen7754 17:39, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Imzadi, both his first points and his follow-up comments. As long as WikiProject U.S. Roads redirects to the template - which it does - I see no reason to change the template's name. The spirit of the standardization is present in the banner's current name - it's not as if it's named "UsrdProject" or something even more obscure. –  T M F 18:39, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose per "if it isn't broke, don't fix it." –Fredddie™ 23:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment As I understand, we all agree at least that all bots and programs will use the WikiProject name then. Moreover, I can redo this edit I guess. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:28, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * What benefit is there to that change? Additionally, that's never been the common name of the project - it's always been known as the U.S. Roads WikiProject, hence the prolific use of the USRD acronym. –  T M F 23:51, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This is project original name, because all wikproject's start with WikiProject. This helps people to identify them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And having "WikiProject" after "Roads" doesn't identify it? –  T M F 23:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not enough. That's why we want all the names to follow the same form. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:56, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec x3) Ok, TMF commented before I could, but that is now the third time that change has been reverted without any prior discussion. I want to call that vandalism. As TMF says, the project's name is not what you're trying to call it. Please desist in your incorrect insistence. If you want further proof on how the project has been "branded" see our newsletter's masthead.  Imzadi  1979   →  23:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * WikiProject U.S. Roads is not a redirect. All wikiprojects are called WikiProject... and all belong to Wikipedia space. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And yes, it's not nice that my edit was reverted 3 times without prior discussion. My last edit was reverted some minutes after I did it with comment "per talk" and the discussion is still active! -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:04, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * As the founder of this WikiProject we have always referred to it as the U.S. Roads WikiProject. Never as anything else. --Rschen7754 00:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Replying to Madioladitis, this banner falls under the scope of WP:HRT. Changes to it should not be made without prior discussion. The fact that you are an administrator means that you can edit the template, but that doesn't mean you can just edit the template on your own free will. The fact that you've been reverted twice meant that you shouldn't have made attempt #3 without discussing the change first. Any further changes that you make that I see to the substance of the template without a prior proposal will be considered vandalism and flagged as such by myself, even though I can't revert you. Am I clear on this point now?  Imzadi  1979   →  00:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A little name change doesn't mean I tried to rewrite the code and I used the preview button before doing it. As I see from the discussion, there is objection on the name of the banner, not on which name will be used on the pages and moreover, I don't understand how can be objections on the project's name since all Wikiproject names are standarised. So this change wasn't part of the discussion on the banner's name. -- This comment is invalid sine you are the one who insists piping the original name. Any other banner doesn't do that. Magioladitis (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * See above, the name of the project has been "U.S. Roads WikiProject" from the beginning of the project. Your preferences to the contrary, the project does not want to change its name. Likewise, WP:MSHP is the "Michigan State Highways Project", yet don't tell me it needs to change its name to conform to your idea of standardization. The name in the banner reflects the consensus of the project to continue using that name. You've never gained consensus to alter that fact, so please stop trying to ram through a change that's unwanted and unneeded.  Imzadi  1979   →  00:29, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose - The status quo is fine.  Dough 48  72  23:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * First this is not in any way a high risk template. In regards to the name of the project, just because its been like that all along doesn't mean its right. It really should be United States not U.S. But thats an argument for another day. The status quo isn't fine and its really a shame how much of an us and them attitude the project has shown towards editors outside the group/other projects. The comments make it sound as though the project has ownership of the articles and they do not. They are a very important part in the development and maintenance of them and the project offers an efficient and organized way for editors with like interests to work together to achieve a common goal....but they do not own the articles. To say that other projects have no interest/business using the templates this project uses is just rediculous. In regards to Imzadi's comments about the Metabanner, After reviwing the logic for this projects banner and the Metabanner I have noticed several areas for improvement in both. For the mtabanner the first is to make it allow more than 5 task forces. For this one the codes used for the various cleanup tasks are very unclear and should be clarified so that new users/other projects can understand them. With that said although there are some special fields I see some very good ideas that could be used at a a higher level cross project. I am going look into revamping the code for the Metabanner template to fix some of these problems and include logic to allow some of the functionality you have as well as allow for custom parameters. A long term goal to be sure but I think its doable.-- Kumioko (talk) 00:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, so never mind that it has over 13,000 transclusions, which is enough to justify the HRT standard kicking in. Even so, when a change is made and reverted, the principles of WP:BRD say that the third step is "discuss". It's not "wait a few weeks and try it again and see if no one is watching this time." It's not "get reverted a second time and wait a few more months and try a third time." The language change has been discussed and rejected. To switch the banner to the metatemplate, you'd need to support 59 "taskforces" for all 50 states, DC, 5 territories and 3 types (Interstates, US Highways, auto trails). And then the current template will support up to 20 states being cross-tagged (although I think the most is probably around 8-12 on any article).


 * If the portion of the community that forms a WikiProject doesn't have some measure of control over its own banner template, then something is seriouslu wrong here. This is not the first time that changes from outside the project have been proposed to this banner, and every time they've been soundly rejected. Don't you people get a hint that we like our banner as it is? Your proposal to move MILHIST's banner was rejected without any supports. None. You lost there and came here, and you don't get that another project doesn't like its template being meddled with?


 * We're just tired of being told how to run our project by people with no vested interest in the project. You don't edit the articles we edit. Rather you try to edit our talk page banner template. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Sorry guys, but we don't want to be consistent with the rest on these issues, we're happy just as we are.  Imzadi  1979   →  00:51, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually you are wrong on one note. Just because I didnt add my name to the Wisconsin project list of members (I added it to the US one) I have edited a lot of Wisconsin related articles. Several hundred in fact. --Kumioko (talk) 01:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Also in regards to your comment about adding all the projects...Its already done...see this. As soon as were ready, so is the banner. --Kumioko (talk) 01:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, that won't work. I know others will say the same thing. The current banner template does not include the state portals, and runs the states horizontally to save space. Remember, we have articles that are tagged for up to 8-12 states and a type (I/US/auto trail).  Imzadi  1979   →  01:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me clarify that there is and wont be a requirement to use it. If the project chooses not too then they dont have too. But it will be there if they do. My intent is to include the inactive projects so they are covered by a project. As for your comment of having 8+ taskforces thats fine. They can have all 50 if they really want too. I can add a field for type, the new banner would have the state portal, and there are a couple of other fields that we might add as well. One I thought was a great idea was subject which is used by WikiProject Congress. --Kumioko (talk) 01:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You missed my point. Your template runs each subproject as a separate line. Ours does not. It runs them horizontally, so that even the 8-12 state articles have 2-3 lines, not 8-12. It works by using  etc and   and I should have mentioned that are a few sub-taskforces for county roads (like MI-CHTF for the Michigan County-Designated Highways task force). Thanks for the effort, but no thank you at this time.  Imzadi   1979   →  02:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh thanks. Well I have to admit I dont really understand what your trying to say. I completely understand if you dont want to use it. Quite frankly were not ready for that yet anyway. I want to concentrate on the inactive ones first. Could you give me an example article with what your talking about. I would like to see how you are doing that. On a different note, I did a little research into Category:Wisconsin (I looked at a few other states too) and I get about 31000 different articles in all the categories and subcats. So your numbers seem way low. Not sure if thats by design though but I thought I would let you know. I also put a comment on Template:Bannermeta about fixing some of the issues with it. --Kumioko (talk) 02:29, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, a little history here. The USRD project deals with state highways, which includes the Interstate Highway System and the United States Numbered Highway System. (Both types are technically state highways even though the overall systems are national.) Because at the time there was WP:WikiProject Interstate Highways and WP:WikiProject U.S. Highways in addition to the state highway projects, when USRD was formed, the USH name was in use. Lacking a better name, USRD took the U.S. Roads name. The project does not count city streets in scope; there's WP:WikiProject U.S. Streets for that. USRD does extend the scope to county roads where the state subprojects cover them. We understand that the name doesn't correspond exactly to the scope, but because of the history behind the project and its subprojects, it can't.
 * Question: Can someone explain the benefit of this? It is suggested it will make bot coding easier. How so? How will this simplify the parsing algorithm for whatever regular expression the bot is searching for? If there is a valid reason I'll support, but just saying, "it will make things easier" without an example isn't helpful. Dave (talk) 02:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Three I can think of:
 * It's easier to program a bot to search for "WikiProject ..." and do some unified changes than program it to treat each project differently
 * Already AWB bots can put all wikiprojects using the standard name in WPBS if they are many of them
 * A newbie can guess a project's name without having to think a lot. -- Magioladitis (talk)
 * Magioladitis (talk) 02:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well to repeat from above a bit there are a couple. The first one is that it makes it easier for editors if all the like templates are the same. Template:Foo means X regardless of what the project is. When there are 50 variations of a template just because its a different project its confusing. As far as the bot question goes, yes your correct its possible to program the regex to consider all the variatons but its a lot easier to say [(Foo)] then it is to say[(Foo|foo|fum|fi|fo|Fo|Fi|Fum|free|fast|fred|etc)]. --Kumioko (talk) 02:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Why would a bot be editing our banner? We as a project have done a fine job of maintaining and adding parameters/features. –Fredddie™ 02:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Knowone is saying you havent. And its possible the bot would never need to do anything. But with thousands of articles under the scope of the project with more being added all the time, are you sure that the banner and the projects associated templates are correct on every single one? Wouldn't it be better if, as the bots do their usual work, they also fix those problems, few though they may be. Then as the project goes out editing the articles they wouldn't have to spend time that could be used on some other task? Just something to think about. --Kumioko (talk) 03:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There are over 13,000 articles under USRD. (I think Kumioko is confusing WP:USRD with the larger, but totally separate WP:WPUSA.) We shouldn't be adding that many more articles under our project since most of our articles have already been created and assessed. The only people doing any AWB work concerning our banner are project members, and even then, that's very rare. Outside editors aren't AWBing our template, and shouldn't need to. Many of our articles aren't dual-tagged with other projects, and as a project, we've discussed removing state-project dual tags as the state projects just plain don't edit or support the articles in any fashion. Any benefits though of a bot editing our banner will not be applicable unless or until all of the transclusions are switched over. Since that's not being proposed here, I see this as a ton of unwanted discussion on an unwanted concept for no benefit. The only benefit given "it's easier for new editors to find the banner template at a standard name" is already accomplished since the proposed name is already a redirect. I think the most commonly used redirect though is USRD, which is the standard abbreviation for the project's name. Now, as for the space issue I mentioned above, look at the banner on Talk:U.S. Route 30. There are four items listed: U.S. Highways, Idaho, Wyoming and West Virginia Routes, with the last item wikilinked to its subproject. All four appear on a single line, not four separate lines. ID and WY don't have task forces or subprojects, so just the state names are listed. (US 30 actually passes through: OR, ID, WY, NE, IA, IL, IN, OH, WV, PA and NJ, but if any of those states have a "state-detail article", like U.S. Route 30 in Iowa, the state isn't tagged. Rather the state-detail article is tagged for its state and US Highways.) I hope that answers your question, Kumioko.  Imzadi   1979   →  03:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * No I was confusing it with another conversation on WP:Wisonsin. But Category Roads in the United States also has way more than is currently being tracked by this project but not all are state roads some are city/county street names and such. The project name would indicate all roads though so not sure there. In fact I got somewhere in the neighborhood of 38000 articles. You are absolutely wrong about your comment regarding the banner. Anyone can make changes and although they are likely to be done by members of the project, it is not required. As long as the changes are for the better, who cares if they belong to the project or not. I would not remove any of the state tags unless you want a fight. For one some are active even though others are not. WP:Wisconsin, California, Pennsylvania and Virginia are all pretty active. Plus if they are going to be consolidated at all it should be to a project like WP:USA not to a peer, unrelated one. In regards to having them on one line I agree it does take up less room but I dont like how you have 2 that link and 2 that don't. I also think it could be confusing how 2 are street related but 2 appear to be states. I think we should separate them. In the end I could give several pluses and minuses for each but in the end I just like the ability of transcluding the multiple US related wikiprojects in one template, whether thats inline as you have done, in rows with the portals and links to the project, or a combination of the 2. --Kumioko (talk) 04:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Now, as for the two states in my example that don't have links: they don't have task forces or subprojects. Not all states do because not all states have had enough active members to form task forces or subprojects. Thus there is nothing to link Idaho or Wyoming to in the banner. As for removing the state tags: the MSHP subproject of USRD has been considered a subproject of WP:MICH for quite a while. I regularly have to remove MICH tags from MSHP articles because editors don't know that. MICH would not assist MSHP when it needed help on articles, only tagged a quarter to half of the articles, even when asked if they wanted them all tagged and just plain stopped collaborating on MSHP-related articles. The situation is similar with other state-level projects. They don't do any of the work on the articles, but are quick to claim another FA star in their projects' stats. That's why USRD subprojects want to pull the state-level tags.

If "but in the end I just like the ability of transcluding the multiple US related wikiprojects in one template" means any concept of merging USRD's banner into WPUSA's combined banner, we will want nothing of it. The highway project for Canada WP:CRWP has no separate banner from WP:CANADA, and the latter fights every time they want a separate one. In the end that has meant that CRWP has no separate importance ratings. Because the Ontario subproject has a separate banner (for now), Ontario has province-level assessment tracking. They can track their articles like we do at WP:USRD/A/S, but they can't compare their province against the others in Canada. We're slowly fighting to help CRWP get their own banner back. In fact, our common parent project, WP:HWY has a long-term goal being discussed to have all of the national highway projects banners recoded so that the HWY assessment categories also populate with the US, Canadian, British, Indian, etc articles. That way HWY as a whole can track its article improvement progress on a national scale.  Imzadi  1979   →  05:06, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well to be honest I think I know why the other states stopped working with the project. This project doesnt seem to do much cooperating. Just a lot of thats how we've always done it and you cant make us change. Which is fine, if you want to go it alone thats on you but you cant say that knowone is trying to help....you just dont like the help thats being offered. With that said your project has done a good job of tagging the articles, assessing them and you seem to have a solid group of editors who actively participate. Thats great and I hope to get that going in WPUS soon as well. I mentioned before there is no requirement for you to use the WPUS banner but that doesnt give you ownership of the articles so I would suggest not removing anymore state tags. Maybe if you stop throwing them off the article they'll participate more. Wether their active or not removing their tags sends the wrong message, The WPUS project is still in the process of being stood back up but in the next few months I see it being very active and cooperation between our projects is going to start becoming necessary, whether you use our templates, we use yours or we use them both separately in the end were still gonna be playing in the same sandbox so we all have to get along. Although I will continue to monitor the page, This will likely be my last post on this particular topic since it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Thanks for explaining the history of the project, templates and the talk page banner. I learned a lot of useful information. I will add some of that to the notes on the project on the WPUS Embassy page. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need assistance with something. Excuse the typos and bad grammer is 130 in the morning where I am. --Kumioko (talk) 05:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, in my case, it's the reverse. those of us in MSHP needed help back in 2006-08 with articles. We turned to MICH for help and got none. We turned to USRD and got help. We've asked for collaboration from the state-level projects for so long and found either crickets chirping on the talk pages or been ignored that we just moved on without them. The only "collaboration" that comes from outside of USRD is people telling us how to change our templates, how to name and word things and what feels like demands to merge into other projects. If WPUS gets back on its feet, I'd be happy to work with them, but I won't roll over and let them dictate changes.  Imzadi  1979   →  05:34, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. I have recently added portal links to all of the MSHP articles... and that included the MICH portal. It's not like we ignore the state projects, it's just that they tend to ignore us.  Imzadi  1979   →  05:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Support What we are talking about here is a template name, not changing the template to use meta, forcing a rename of the project, or merging the project into WPUS! Simply moving the template, to what is currently one of its redirects. So what does this change?  Well it is mainly enabling, at the moment although there is a redirect, attempts to change any individual instance of it meet with opposition from our... more detail concerned colleagues... who object, citing WP:BLAH. So next question, why and when (on talk pages) would this change happen? Well the "when" is pretty universally accepted that it would generally be only when a talk page was being edited for another reason. The why is worth reiterating:

While I hesitate to say categorically there is no downside to the rename simply because I can't see any, there are certainly none of the sinister motives ascribed to it. Rich Farmbrough, 18:43, 3 November 2010 (UTC).
 * Easier for newbies. Most Wikipedia editors haven't started editing yet.
 * Easier for people who aren't familiar with the handful of "unusual" banners
 * Easier for automated/semi-automated tasks. I split this into two parts
 * Yes adding a few exceptions is easy. But there are new coders, new processes, all the time. We should not unnecessarily make these tasks harder - or have them miss some projects unwittingly.
 * Not all (not any?) of the processes that will benefit are about changing uses of this banner. They may be gathering project information, building lists for WP 1.0, for books, external projects etc., or more immediately using the manual ratings from this project to rate other projects.


 * The fact that the "standard" name redirects to the current template eliminates the first two "advantages". --Rschen7754 22:19, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Then why oppose it if you admit that it will not harm your project or the template. This move is only intended to make things easier for everyone, including the members of this project especially the less skilled ones or the future members who havent joined the project yet. --Kumioko (talk) 00:02, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Because there is no harm in leaving the status quo. --Rschen7754 00:15, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There was no harm in the Model T ford, cars that got 4 miles to the gallon or the Atari 2600 (I was very mad when they stopped making that, I loved Frogger and Centipede) either...yet we eventually outgrew all three and I dare say we are the better for it. Just because theres no harm doesnt mean its the best or most efficient way of doing things. --Kumioko (talk) 00:46, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This red herring argument won't persuade us. There will be zero performance improvement by changing the template's name. –Fredddie™ 02:24, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The proposed "advantages" already exist through the existing redirect. The last proposed advantage doesn't really apply here because no one outside of USRD should have need to be automating edits to this project's banner. The remaining items in the automation "advantage" are built out of the assessment categories which are populated by the template, not the template itself. In other words there are no advantages beyond a bunch of non-project members insisting this project conform. Sorry, we've told you and will continue to tell you that we're not interested. MILHIST and the Biography project have told or are telling you the same thing we are. We're not interested.  Imzadi  1979   →  01:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The advantages are there you just don't want to hear it because they don't directly impact your project. But it does give the impression that your project doesn't want to work with other projects since only a couple have said they aren't interested. To anticipate your next comment about other projects not wanting to do it I can kinda understand WPBIO and Milhist only because both have hundreds of thousands of articles that would be affected. If it doesn't matter as you say to allow this template to match the others, especially since the move would match a redirect that already exists, so that they all follow a standard then saying that you aren't interested is just being stubborn. Its too bad really but it happens...your right in the end though there's nothing we can do about it so I'm not going to continue to try and persuade you to allow this template to be moved. With that off my chest I do sincerely hope that disagreement doesn't hamper future cooperation between our projects. --Kumioko (talk) 02:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Outlining reasons to oppose proposal

 * 1) WP:Banner standardisation is only an essay. It is not policy, merely "comments and advice of one or more Wikipedia contributors".
 * 2) The "benefits" stated above either already exist or aren't really applicable.
 * 3) "Easier for newbies. Most Wikipedia editors haven't started editing yet." The proposed name already exists through a redirect. We're past a phase of major article creation meaning new editors are rarely tagging articles, if at all.
 * 4) USRD is even easier than either of the names.
 * 5) "Easier for people who aren't familiar with the handful of "unusual" banners." Once again, the proposed name already exists through a redirect. Additionally, the current name is similar to the proposed name, so it should not be confusing to anyone.
 * 6) "Easier for automated/semi-automated tasks. I split this into two parts:
 * 7) *Yes adding a few exceptions is easy. But there are new coders, new processes, all the time. We should not unnecessarily make these tasks harder - or have them miss some projects unwittingly.
 * 8) *Not all (not any?) of the processes that will benefit are about changing uses of this banner. They may be gathering project information, building lists for WP 1.0, for books, external projects etc., or more immediately using the manual ratings from this project to rate other projects."
 * No bots or automated editing (AWB) should be adding this template to articles unless requested by USRD. Either event is unlikely as our articles have been tagged and assessed since 2006 or so. Additionally, most of the second section comes not through trolling the template transclusions, but rather through the assessment categories that are populated by the template.
 * 1) "Bot usually fix names while doing other things like adding more projects, assessing, etc" Well, no bots should be assessing articles for USRD except under USRD request, and such a request wouldn't include a request to change the template name.
 * 2) There is no proposal to change the thousands of transclusions of the template on the article talk pages to the proposed title. Any such "benefits" of the proposal won't apply until this is done. It's said that when other edits are made then the template name would be updated. Well, unless editors from outside of this project are going to be editing the pages, that would assume that project members will be updating the name. Well, since the project members have all expressed opposition to this renaming so far, I would assume that most of us will "forget" to change the name when reassessing an article.
 * 3) There is no harm in the status quo, except that an outside view of consistency is messed up by this project not accepting this proposal. MILHIST has not accepted your arguments, so your goal at perfect conformity has been stymied at another forum already.
 * 4) "Anyone can make changes and although they are likely to be done by members of the project, it is not required. As long as the changes are for the better, who cares if they belong to the project or not" We don't agree that this is a change for the better. There wouldn't be as much commentary here if there was agreement that the change is for the better.
 * 5) If we look at a pure numbers game at the moment the split in !votes are 5 in opposition to 4 in support with 2 addition comments. That's hardly any kind of consensus.
 * 6) *The opposes come from myself, Rschen7754, TwinsMetsFan, Fredddie and Dough4872.
 * 7) *The supports come from Magioladitis (nominator), Kumioko, PC78 and Rich Farmbrough.
 * 8) *Two people have queried but not stated a position yet: Moabdave and Ltpowers. Comments by both suggest skepticism of the proposal.

In short for every proposed advantage outlined, there is a reason why this suggestion is opposed. I suggest that the nominator withdraw the proposal at this time. there is no consensus to make the change, and we can continue to discuss this until the 7-day period elapses without the sides in the debate shifting.  Imzadi  1979   →  02:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I know I said I wasn't going to continue to beat a dead horse so Ill make this quick..USRD is ambiguous and could mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Especially those outside the US. A couple possibles Uncle Sam is Really Dumb, Under Secretary of X (Army, Navy, DOD, whatever) for Research and Developement, United States Republicans and Democrats, etc). A couple are silly I grant you but my point is someone unfamiliar with the project wouldnt necessarily know and we have to create templates and articles with the reader in mind, not the writer. In regards to the other points you seem to be forgetting that not all bots are adding banners or performing obvious changes. What about the bot that builds the statistics pages, the bot that generates the lists of Unrefernced BLP's (not applicable to you I know), the various other bots that perform tasks or the bots that havent been created yet for the problems we havent yet encountered. Your right currently there is a minimal tangible gain to you but there are plenty of intangible effects that ripple out when things dont match. Thats one reason why some of us have been actively trying to standardize the thousands of underused and or unstandardized templates (Infoboxes, talk page banners, unnecessary redirects, multiple templates that serve the same purpose, etc) that continue to mystify even those of us that have been editing for years. You also continue to have an attitude of ownership over these articles and I feel compelled to remind you, again, that I, you, we do not own these articles. --Kumioko (talk) 03:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, since WP:USRD and WT:USRD redirect to the project page and talk page, respectively, I don't think that the abbreviation is ambiguous. The bot that handles statistics does not use the template itself. Rather it relies on the contents of Category:U.S. state road transport articles by quality and all of the various state road transport assessment categories. All of those categories are populated by the template, but are not dependent on the name of the template as transcluded on the talk pages. This template belongs to the WikiProject, and the members of that project have overwhelmingly said "no deal."  Imzadi  1979   →  03:28, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Lets not overemphasize, 5 oppose, 4 Support and 2 on the fence isn't consensus but its hardly overwhelming. Im glad you know how the bots work but my point was that there are other bots than just the ones tagging banners. --Kumioko (talk) 03:45, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I still don't see any consensus to make the proposed change. I still suggest that the nominator and proponents withdraw the proposal. You've yet to demonstrate any concrete benefits to be gained from changing the name of the template, that aren't achieved already through an existing redirect. Continuing to argue the points won't change them. The members of the project have said "no deal". Please withdraw the proposal and let's call this a day.  Imzadi  1979   →  03:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Its not mine to withdraw but personally I usually let them run their course. --Kumioko (talk) 04:00, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.