User talk:Morriswa/Archives/2015/March

Junction lists
Things like this look very good, so take this as a piece of constructive criticism. Those bullets aren't supposed to be there; rather you should be using colons per the example on MOS:RJL. In the case where you need to indent with ";;", then you'd need each junction to have "::" to start the line, otherwise a single ":" is all that you need.

Also, one other thing, but "I-196/US 31" is a single highway, so it should take singular verb forms as in, "I-196/US 31 travels concurrently..." while "the highways travel concurrently." Otherwise, it looks good, and I'. glad someone has the time, energy and enthusiasm to go through the national articles and add those missing lists.  Imzadi 1979  →   16:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Imzadi.
 * To make sure I understand, the "northern" and "southern" segment lists should have "::" for each junction?
 * Now, it is grammatically correct to say "I-196/US 31 travel". At least, that is what makes most sense to me.
 * Thank you for the constructive criticism. I have been wanting to add these junction lists for a long time. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 16:34, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * In our summary-style junction lists, or the ones with the tables, we use the scheme for definition lists (look at Pure Michigan Byway for such a list), but the "word to be defined" is the name of a state, and the definition that appears on the subsequent line(s) is a junction or set of junctions. So without segments, the state lines get a single ";" and the junctions get a single ":".
 * In cases like US 31 with segments, you've got it right. The segment name gets a single ";", the states in that segment are indented with ";;", and the junctions are indented with "::".
 * As for the grammar issue, "I-196/US 31" is a single roadway with a combined name. It's like when a friend of the family got married and "Mary Smith" became "Mary Smith-Jones". She has a single last name of "Smith-Jones", not two separate names. Using her last name only, you'd write "Smith-Jones does" not "Smith-Jones do". If you write "I-196 and US 31 travel concurrently", you're using each name separately, so it's a plural subject. If you write "I-196/US 31", that slash merges the two into a single unit, so it becomes a singular subject that would be followed by "travels concurrently".  Imzadi 1979  →   17:09, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This edit corrects the formatting per the example on MOS:RJL, which doesn't use bullets.  Imzadi 1979  →   17:52, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks for cleaning up my boneheaded "mistakes". LOL. Sorry for the last one. I was trying to hurry up and finish US 33 before I went to work. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 23:38, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * By the way, can anything about my editing of these be added to the USRD newsletter? Just wondering, because it would feel great to be wanted and helpful again. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 02:17, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to give you some more constructive criticism. Here I would use the county or counties instead of townships. Take the US 20 intersection in Iowa. This Iowan couldn't tell you where Griggs Township lies if his life depended on it, but he could tell you where Ida County is. If we had a US 59 in Iowa article, we would go into the the township level of detail, but I don't think it's appropriate for a national article like this. I understand what you're trying to do, so don't feel discouraged, you're doing fine. –Fredddie™ 05:54, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * So, are you saying to put just Ida County, in those instances? Thanks for the "heads up". It feels good to really be helping the project. Oh, I did have another question: For Interstate highways, would the section on the national-level articles be named "Major intersections" or "Exit list"? Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 09:36, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You are correct, just Ida County. As far as the section goes, I think we as a project are starting to lean towards "Junction list" instead of "Major intersections", so I'd use "Junction list".  I'd save "Exit list" for the tables. –Fredddie™ 12:53, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Excuse me for being a pain, or for sounding stupid, but I want to make sure I totally understand you. The "Ida County" "scenario" above is just for those junctions that don't have a city/town/CDP, etc.? Does it apply to just U.S. highways and/or Interstate highways? Can you clarify that, please? For the second part, "Junction list" instead of "Major intersections" as the "title" of the section only applies to Interstate highways, right? I know this is just for the national-level highways, but I want to make sure I understand this one totally, as well. Thank you for helping me become more of a good editor. :-) Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 02:30, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Meh, just put "near Holstein". This is more like an infobox junction list than a tabular list. --NE2 02:52, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Reflinks is not infallible
This edit was necessary to fix something, and I figured that I would bring this to your attention for the future. In this case, the website has been redesigned, and the URL that was used in the article redirects to a totally different page, which Reflinks so dutifully used to fill in the citation. Nothing on the redirected page (the general landing page or "home page" for the whole web site) applied to what was being cited, so I copied and pasted the URL into http://archive.org/ and looked at the last archive of that URL. Sure enough, that page actually does reference the information, so I manually copied the title, date then pasted them along with the archive-url and archive-date.

In short, Reflinks, like all other automated editing tools and scripts, is a great thing, when it's used properly. In this case, it returned incorrect information. In other cases, it returns incomplete information because it is relying on websites to provide metadata and other information it can parse to fill in the citation template. Sometimes it gets stuff wrong, so you should remember to double check what it's changing in the article to see if the changed text makes sense.  Imzadi 1979  →   08:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of multiple navboxes
I know you're not gonna like this, but I've nominated five navboxes you created for deletion. The discussion is here, if you'd like to comment. T C  N7 JM  01:15, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Category:Streets and roads named after Martin Luther King, Jr.
Category:Streets and roads named after Martin Luther King, Jr., which you created, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 03:12, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Transportation categories
If you'd like to go through the rest of Iowa's articles and add them, go right ahead. –Fredddie™ 02:02, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Cool. Thanks. Charlotte Allison (Allen/Morriswa) (talk) 04:05, 31 March 2015 (UTC)