Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Ohio/Archive 1

New Shields On Wikimedia Commons
I'm in the process of creating new shields over on Wikimedia Commons. I'll switch the template over when I get most of them done. You can see them here. Micheal 18:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Per the conversation below, I have uploaded all new standardized shields with the naming convention OH-X.svg thru OH-XXX.svg, and they can be found here. Homefryes 14:14, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Have seen a new sign template in use, on SR-58NB near a new development that required some road const. may just be a contractor posting a non-ODOT sign. picture to follow when i have more time.
 * ALERT

Einstine85 16:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Renaming
Renamed List of numbered routes in Ohio to List of Ohio State Highways to try and go for uniformity in list naming (for state highways).  Seicer  (talk) (contribs) 17:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Not sure we should "jump the gun" on renaming of the articles, since that whole bit is still up in the air. If you don't object, I'd like to revert the "naming" portion back to the original (on the project page) until the entire naming debate is settled; the majority (if not all) of the articles are currently "Ohio State Highway n," so this change would begin the whole process of renaming/moving them.  Additionally, once the debate is settled, we will need to agree on either "route" or "highway."  Anyone else wish to comment, please?  Homefryes 15:07, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That's old. For now, I have kept the page directing to List of state routes in Ohio which redirects to the main page. In the future, this can easily be changed.  Seicer  (talk) (contribs) 15:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I'm referring to the change you made on the project page under "Naming." Not sure we should change this as of yet, i.e., new articles having one naming convention when most (if not all) existing articles are named "Ohio State Highway n."  That's the revert I'm proposing (reverting the project page back to show the currently used naming convention for articles).  I'm just saying we should avoid confusion until other issues have been resolved, because then we'll need to bring project-specific issues to the floor.  Trying to make sense (without stepping on toes). Homefryes 15:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * (edit) P.S., I think you have the explanation of "article title" and "redirect" reversed in your comment for the edit on the project page. Homefryes 16:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Project improvements
To all interested parties on this project: I’ve been working on articles for other state highway wikiprojects, and in comparing them to this one, I would like to make some proposals for improvement. While what we have going here so far is good, I think there is definitely some room for improvement. I’m very interested in starting a conversation regarding my proposals.

I realize that some of you may feel that “this is a bad time to be working on highway projects,” in light of recent events and activities going on in the community. I, however, think this is the perfect time to work on this project. Changes based on the outcome of some of the afore-mentioned events may bring massive changes (or not) to this project; regardless, this would be a good time to make some changes here and incorporate them in the grand scheme.

What I am suggesting overall is a better organization of the project itself. The actual project outline could use more specifics, in my opinion. In comparison to the WP:NYSR, I think we are pretty vague on our project page. Here are some of my detailed suggestions:

Infobox
My overall suggestion is that we use the Infobox Road template, which is more widely used and consistent with other states' pages. Pennsylvania’s is a good example. Some of the features we lack that this one has are:
 * Year formed
 * Counties listing

Thie would remove the Cities listing from the infobox. For routes that are long, and/or pass through suburban areas, the cities listing can get rather long, thus taking up a lot of space. We already have the cities in a list in the body of the article, so we are just duplicating that.

As for the browsing line at the bottom of the infobox, I will say that I’m not a fan of US routes being linked-up if they fall in sequence with the state routes – reason being, the reader gets pulled out of the state’s route listings altogether, a problem I find annoying when I’m browsing. However, it seems to be the norm on other projects, and there is the possibility of having each state’s previous and next routes listed on the US route’s page in a browsing format. So, if this is the way it is to be (for standardization), then we need to be certain that the state’s routes are listed on the US route’s page (see the bottom of U.S. Route 4 for an example).


 * I can make a info box similar to what I now use at, for instance, Kentucky State Highway 7. It is entirely customizable and quick to set up.  Seicer  (talk) (contribs) 17:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That looks good. I tried playing with "infobox road" for Ohio, but the default for Ohio is SR rather than OH.  While I'm not opposed to that, I'm not sure it's the way we want to go.  I'm hoping to get more feedback on the content that should be included.  I'm not sure now that "year formed" should be part of it, since I have yet to find that information out on the web anywhere.  But I do lean toward including counties and not including cities in the infobox, as mentioned above.  Homefryes 17:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I like the one that the NY State Routes Wikiproject uses. It has all of the normal information you'd expect plus one for counties which would go along with what Homefryes said. Micheal 00:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * After looking at the infobox on the OH-1/2/3 pages, I kinda agree with what Homefryes said, that and it's pretty much similar with those used in other state highway pages(eg. Georgia) so it looks consistent across state projects. Micheal 05:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe we can get the coding changed on "infobox road" to show "OH" instead of "SR" when Ohio is selected as the type. Thoughts?  Homefryes 10:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC) Disregard that suggestion.  It's not going to be entertained, as ODOT uses "SR" and not "OH" in their terminology.  Regardless, I'd still like to propose the use of "infobox road" for Ohio. Homefryes 21:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm confused here - so the infobox at Kentucky State Highway 7 works as long as OH is changed to SR? That's no problem. As I stated, it is customizable, but note that adding stuff like major intersections or information that can easily be listed in the main body should not be added to the infobox. It should be short and concise.  Seicer  (talk) (contribs) 18:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Not exactly. That was in ref to Infobox Road (all-encompassing template) displays "SR" when Ohio is the type entered in the variables.  My only issue w/ SR in the infobox is when the route terminates at the state line, it's a little ambiguous.  One only has the shield to differentiate -- and the article's link, of course.  Otherwise, SR in the infobox is fine.  So I guess we need to agree on whether we will use Infobox Road (which shows "SR") or create our own homegrown infobox with "OH" as the coding.  I do like Infobox Road for its other features, and wouldn't want to lose that capability.  On the topic of cities and junctions in the infobox, I agree that shorter is better.  I don't mind a handful of junctions.  I would like to propose that the only junctions that land in the infobox would be with Interstates or other limited-access highways only (Ohio 11 for example).  I think cities in the infobox is redundant, but would much prefer seeing counties (like Infobox Road has).  Not in list-form, but separated by a comma, as is used on other states' articles.  Responses, anyone?  Homefryes 20:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Side comment from a neighboring WP (PA) member: depending on what the consensus ends up being (whether to use "SR" or "OH"), the abbreviation that Infobox road uses can be edited here. Regards, T M F T - C 00:01, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The KY Road infobox template has comma seperations for counties and cities, but if the city listing is in the body of the text, it can be removed. Major junctions could be listed in the infobox if its not excessive, but we need to come up with a set standard on what should go in there and what should not. Your example is fine with me, as Ohio defines limited-access as a highway that has controlled access points, such as expressways and freeways that do not need to have interchanges. Limited-access is on, for instance, US 52 between New Boston and Chesapeake although it has intersections and interchanges - and signs on the ROW fencing indicates this.  Seicer  (talk) (contribs) 23:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with counties in, cities out. As for junctions, I wouldn't quibble if someone included US 52 if the junction is part of the limited-access portion.  Route 82 is limited-access around Warren, but east of that it has interchanges at 3 state highways and a grade-level intersection at Route 7; and it has grade-level intersections with all county and township roads east of Warren as well, with one exception.  But the speed limit is (I recall) at least 60; therefore, I would list it as a junction for at least the 3 state routes and possibly Route 7 as well.  Conversely, I would NOT list any of these routes around Warren and points east as major junctions for Route 82 except for Route 11 (and its terminus at US 62).  How does that sound?  So the only remaining issues I'm aware of are (1) the redesigned route shields and my getting them loaded to the Commons (with the naming convention OH-X.svg (thru XXX)), and (2) agreeing on either SR or OH in the infobox when OH is the type designated.  The infobox should allow the editor to use the neighboring states as well (where termini are at state lines) and that state's route shield and name will appear.  Agreed?


 * I'm changing my stance on all limited-access highways being considered as "major junctions." I was testing Infobox road on Route 7, and if all junctions with limited-access highways are included, it gets mighty long!  So I'm going to take a step backward and suggest only junctions with 2-digit interstates.  Homefryes 14:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Structure
I would like to suggest a standardized format for each route’s page; some sections can be optional. WP:NYSR uses the following:

Infobox information
Articles should use a standard template that is widely used by other sibling Wikiprojects. We are deciding whether to use Template:Infobox road or create our own similar infobox for Ohio. Proposed items that should be included in the infobox are: We are proposing the cities should not be listed in the infobox, but rather under a separate heading in the body of the article. All known info should be supplied in the infobox.
 * listing of counties, separated by commas
 * Major junctions – only to include junctions between the featured route and limited-access routes.

If there are no objections, I suggest we start using Infobox road for all the articles. Homefryes 14:17, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Main section
This is the untitled section that describes the route. It might be helpful for formatting to use  at the top of this section to display the table of contents on the top left, followed by the main description of the route. Depending on the route this section may just name the direction (E/W or N/S) and termination points, or may go into more detail. After seeing a news-ticker item the week of 8/1/06, in which the president of Wikipedia was stressing quality not quantity of articles submitted, I have decided (for articles that I create) that this section does not need to be wordy and extremely detailed. My suggested inclusions here would be detailed descriptions of the termini of the route, a general description of the route’s characteristics, perhaps major rivers crossed, or other points of interest that wouldn’t be covered below.

I even propose NOT having a “Route description” section. I think everything descriptive could be covered in the “Main section,” and that a paragraph – possibly two at the most – should be more than sufficient there.

Towns along the route
Summary of towns along the route. Depending on the length of the route this may include only major towns, or it could include minor towns and even unincorporated villages, if they’re significant enough to the local area.

Major intersections
List of the state routes, U.S. routes, Interstate routes and, optionally, county routes that this route intersects with in table form. See the “Major intersections table” section below.

History
Any historical information known about the route should be noted.

Miscellanea
Any trivia or facts about a route (any interesting information that doesn't belong in the History section) should be placed in this section.

Straight-Line Diagram legend
Page 2 of the SLD legend gives the meanings of letter suffixes of routes. I mention this because I just noticed "Route 14 Truck" section on Ohio State Route 14 which I just changed to the correct "Route 14 Temporary". Mapsax (talk) 19:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

John Simpson site
I've noticed on at least the state highway pages I have on my watchlist that periodically, a certain editor will remove the external link to The Unofficial Ohio State Highways Web Site by John Simpson or the specific state route page from that site from the article's external links section. While I understand it's "unofficial", the information used to make the site comes from reliable sources (old state highway maps), so I don't see why they shouldn't be included as an external link if they aren't used as a citation since they provide additional relevant information and are non-commercial. Usually they have been removed under the edit summary of "inapplicable link" or something similar. Was there a previous consensus to remove this site from external links sections that I need to be aware of? What are everyone else's thoughts? --JonRidinger (talk) 05:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * They should not be used a a citation, as it is a self-published source, and as for inclusion as an external link only, I'm skeptical of any site that hasn't been updated since 2001. Mind you it's not like the site needs updating all the time, but I'm sure that things have changed in the last 9 years. Of course, Ohio currently has 371 of the 4917 stubs tagged under WP:USRD, for a total of 7.5%. Maybe you can identify a few articles that can be expanded to Start- or C-Class to help reduce the count? Maybe some can be merged together?  Imzadi  1979   →  10:43, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. If the website's information is coming from reliable sources, why does it state "The information contained at this site comes from the many state maps and road atlases I have collected as well as from information I have collected through misc.transport.road and other Internet sources." MTR is not a reliable source. John Simpson doesn't qualify as an "expert" on Ohio Highways, unless his site has been quoted in newspapers, or ODOT starts referring queries to the page. The biggest reason I'm skeptical is that the last update was almost nine years ago. Like I said above, it's not like things change every day, but surely ODOT has made some changes since then that call for updates to the site?  Imzadi  1979   →  03:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. I've gone through quite a bit of his stuff and most highway pages are simply putting into words what he finds on the old state maps, which are now available on the ODOT website to verify, particularly the earlier alignments of each road.  I know for me, it made it easier to write some of the route histories with that as a guide to look at the maps.  It's the more recent history that it obviously falls short on, though in at least this part of Ohio, there aren't many (if any) state routes that have had major route changes in the past 10 years or more.  I don't have a problem removing it as an EL, though I don't particularly have a problem with it staying either since there is a lot of valid information.  What about the end-photos site?  --JonRidinger (talk) 04:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The various sub-sites at state-ends.com are great to include because unless all of the various photographers for the different photos were individually contacted, and they all agreed to have their photos uploaded to Wikipedia/Commons and included in the various articles, the content can't be duplicated.  Imzadi  1979   →  05:43, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess I see them both as fansites that are good and relevant resources for people who are really into highways. On a sidenote, most of the state ends pictures can be duplicated in the same manner that any public domain images are added to Wikipedia: someone near them goes and takes a picture of the signs (since that's pretty much all the photos on there that I've seen) and uploads it as a PD or CC file.  --JonRidinger (talk) 06:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Remember though that our audiences isn't really the roadgeek community, although it is important to do things right by them, it is the general public. My rule of thumb has been to do a Google search for the article subject and append "-wikipedia -wikimedia" to drop out the Wikipedia articles and images from the results. Whatever shows up on the first page that isn't related to the subject highway purely by address reliably makes for good EL candidates. Then I evaluate the candidates for suitability. Yes, we could duplicate the photos from the Ends site, but unless you're volunteering to duplicate the completed efforts of the website, a link is fine. Of course the website is more than just photos, and even if the photos were duplicated and uploaded to Wikipedia/Commons, many articles wouldn't be long enough to include them. They'd get shuffled off to a Commons category/gallery anyway. (In-article image galleries are falling out of favor.) Why reinvent the wheel?  Imzadi  1979   →  06:34, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh I'm fully aware of the audience we're going for/the audience we have and the purpose of ELs. If an EL fits the criteria at WP:EL, even in the slightest, I'm all for it, especially in cases like this where very little info is available on a particular subject and there likely aren't going to be many ELs to begin with.  If it fills the role of relevant info, non-opinion, and is non-commercial, then I don't see any reason not to include it.  But if the main argument is basically that the Simpson site is a WP:FANSITE because he's not an "authority" then state-ends would fall into that as well since it is also largely a fansite and the contributors are not recognized authorities that I am aware of.  Even in terms of being up to date, many of the Ohio pages are upwards of 8 years old themselves (most recent updates in 2008).  And as far as pictures go, I've actually done a bit of photography specifically for Wikipedia articles (NRHP sites for one) and have no problem adding photos to appropriate Commons galleries and putting the links in the associated articles.  I'm someone who takes their camera a lot of places I guess.  No point in going to the trouble to ask permission if someone can get a picture himself and I'm definitely someone who thinks there are very few articles that shouldn't have any pictures.  Really, the vast majority of state highway articles only need maybe an ends photo or two (if any) and one or more of the road itself in different locations (of course, showing the shield somewhere in the picture).  Most would probably need just one photo.  And yes, I'd much rather have at least one photo in each article than a link to a gallery (the link should be in addition to the pictures in the article).  Makes for much easier viewing, especially in longer articles.  --JonRidinger (talk) 13:04, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

RFC on coordinates in highway articles
There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding the potential use of coordinates in highway articles. Your input is welcomed. --Rschen7754 01:59, 26 December 2011 (UTC)