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This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Highways and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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Highways Project‑class

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This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Highways and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

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Requesting comments for an update to List of expressways and highways in Malaysia

Hi. I'm planning to rewrite the above list article. I started a draft at my userspace with the original article, stripped off a few unnecessary columns from the tables, removed a lot of boldfacing and added a few columns as inspired by these articles List of roads in Metro Manila and National Tourist Routes. The starting table idea can be found on User:Pizza1016/List of roads in Malaysia (the first unfinished table; ignore everything else). I would like to see whether this is a suitable table layout and whether any improvements can be made before I continue filling in the rest of the data into the table. Thanks! Pizza1016 (talk | contribs) 15:14, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The US Roads WikiProject recently came up with a standardized scheme, and that was used for the tables on List of Interstate Highways in Michigan, which recently passed WP:FLC. That table layout would be good to emulate. One of my biggest complaints with the Malaysian articles is that they use graphics inline as test. That is a big no-no in the MOS. Please use actual text instead of the graphics, like "Such roads can be distinguished through their route numbers, which always begin with the letter E, such as E1 for the north section of the North–South Expressway." In the US, we do use the highway marker graphics in various tables, but we say they must be followed by the text number.

Another thing: I would make your notes as concise as possible. If the reader wants to know more, he or she will go to the article. The wall of text in the description cell for E1's first segment is ten times longer than what I'd prefer to see. In fact, I wouldn't give a description at all, just concise notes. Imzadi 1979 → 22:16, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The description column alone makes the whole table tl;dr for me. If there must be so much text for each line, I would suggest not using a table and using the format similar to Bannered routes of U.S. Route 61 or List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile. If the table stays, it should follow the {{Routelist row}} format, which can be used for Malaysia. –Fredddie™ 01:45, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I concur with the above two comments, and would add that the photo column should be removed – it doesn't resize proportionately on smaller resolution screens (eg mobile devices and ipads), making the other columns unnecessarily narrow and leaving much whitespace above and below the image. Also note that the {{Routelist row}} format need not be followed precisely, regional differences could be accommodated as long as basic premise is followed (much like the variations allowed in MOS:RJL) - i.e. columns, with suitable headings, for: the route, road name(s) (if applicable), length (both km and mi), terminii, date columns (if the information is known), and a notes column. E.g. List of road routes in Western Australia uses the headings "Route | Component roads | From | Via | To | Length | Notes" (but I would suggest that separate length columns for km and mi would be better, this table format was devised prior to the development of {{Routelist row}} and Michigan's FL) - Evad37  02:19, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Specific file types sent by maintainer of the Dutch roads, Rijkswaterstaat. How to open?

Hello,

Rijkswaterstaat, the corporation that maintains all A-routes in the Netherlands, sent me a bunch of files with weird file type like .shp, .sbx, .shp and a lot more. I don't know how top open them, nor does the one who sent them to me...

I've uploaded them to Google Drive, https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4AQqaVpOz_ganoyQWVnbTFTM0E&usp=sharing , could someone tell me how to handle these types of file?

TheWombatGuru (talk) 12:17, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe Shapefile? — Revi 12:20, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Those are definitely shapefiles. Most standard GIS programs can open them. -happy5214 12:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I've downloaded a bunch of programs and can't get it to work, do you know a program that should work for sure? TheWombatGuru (talk) 13:39, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

QGIS is a free one you can try - Evad37  15:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, those are definitely GIS files, but you need the whole set of files (look for five files with the same name but different extensions) or the software won't work. –Fredddie™ 16:38, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I tried QGis but when I want to open it it says it can't because a .dll file is missing. I do have several sets of files with the same name and different extensions. TheWombatGuru (talk) 16:48, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Change of outlook at ACR

For what's it's worth, people look at A-class review, there are many articles sitting there. People have complained off-site about the lack of reviewers, so I am going to bring back a proposal from the dead.

We have eight ACRs at the moment, 6 by 3 editors alone. In effect, I know I would post my own and review some if we had less articles to review. Personally, I want to propose we change the system to have one ACR per person, which would drop our current queue to five articles. At the same time, I also propose a max of anywhere between 1-5 articles at ACR at a time to prevent reviewer burnout, which also in effect seems to be a major problem.

I personally would rather have 1 article at ACR at a time, which I also hereby propose, but that is not set in stone, hence the 1-5 earlier. Let's talk, we've done it before, but something needs to be done. Mitch32 05:55, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I think the reason it's so backlogged is because the focus is being put on more than one article at a time. If the focus is on only one article at a time, we as a project can make sure that the article is in the best shape it can be before being sent off to FAC. I believe that what we should do is only allow one article at a time to be reviewed, but allow a queue of as long as four other articles to be set up behind it, making sure the queue only has one article per editor. TCN7JM 05:59, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I do not think that we should limit ACR to having a certain number of articles at a time, as that is not fair to editors who want to nominate articles but cannot because other people already have articles there. Rather, I would prefer if we limit editors to nominating one article at a time at ACR, as that would be fair in that a single editor is not clogging the venue with 5 or so articles and would allow multiple editors to be able to use the venue at the same time without there being too many articles. This is similar to the limits that are imposed on editors at FAC. If we were to do this, we would need to grandfather the articles that are already at ACR to remain there, even if an editor has multiple articles there currently. However, editors with articles currently at ACR would not be allowed to send any more articles there until all their reviews are closed. In addition, another idea to foster reviews may be to impose quid pro quo, in which editors who send articles to ACR must conduct a review of another article at the venue. This is similar to what is used at DYK. Dough4872 06:04, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

What happens if the nominator takes a long time to address the issues? Due to either real-life issues or due to just ignoring them (both of which happen on a regular basis in the current system, and which lead to my pings that people seem to be upset about). Then we really have an ACR that is stuck. --Rschen7754 06:04, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

As opposed to the current system? TCN7JM 06:06, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, at least now people can review other articles if one nominator is not responding for whatever reason. This system wouldn't even allow that. --Rschen7754 06:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well of course you use common sense if the nominator can't respond to concerns. My argument still stands that the reason we're so backlogged is because the reviews we have are being spread out among eight different articles instead of just one or two. TCN7JM 06:09, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Which is what, exactly? People ignore stuff because they don't like the review, they are busy in real life, they forget, they need more time to work on resolving the points, etc. Are we going to legislate for all of these scenarios, which happen all the time? Basically you're asking that a nominator be willing to address all concerns within 24 hours, which just simply isn't sustainable. Oh, and it won't eliminate the problem of my annoying pings, it will just make it worse. --Rschen7754 06:12, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

By "use common sense" I meant "review the first article in the queue". Also, that's not what I'm asking at all; I'm asking that the quantity of reviews we have now be focused on one (or two) articles, not that that quantity be magically increased or that the nominator be forced to address concerns more quickly.

Obviously, my idea is more of the base of a proposal than it is an actual proposal, but you still haven't addressed my main point. TCN7JM 06:19, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

If people can review the first article in the queue, then why not the second, if that person is slow to respond, too? That isn't much different than the status quo. And yes, people *should* be reviewing the older nominations first even now...

And regarding your main point, 5 articles (with one article per editor) is better than 8 articles (status quo); that's just basic probability theory. --Rschen7754 06:22, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

But still not ideal. And people should review older nominations first, but they often don't. Probably because it's optional. TCN7JM 06:26, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, yes, if you have 3 balls and you are spreading them out among 1 bin, then yes, in theory that 1 bin would get 3 balls pretty quickly. But if you have one nominator who is slow to respond, for whatever reason, it would quickly stall the entire process, and that negative would outweigh any positives gained with 1 article max versus 5 articles max. I usually ping when someone hasn't responded in 2-4 weeks; it would have to be more like 2-4 days if we went to what you're advocating. --Rschen7754 06:32, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, what if we did something like this? We can have a maximum of five articles nominated at a time, but we require that the articles be reviewed in chronological order? TCN7JM 06:36, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I think the simplest solution is just limiting it to one article per editor. An upper limit will come naturally as we only have 4-5 people who use ACR on a regular basis. I realize that for some of us one article per editor will be a bit of a hardship, but that's more motivation for us to review so that our one article will pass through the process more quickly. --Rschen7754 06:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

An upper limit will come naturally, but will only increase as the project grows. Setting a hard limit now gets rid of that possibility. TCN7JM 06:12, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, but then in theory we would have more reviewers, too... --Rschen7754 06:13, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

And less focus. TCN7JM 06:22, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, I for one would certainly be happy to revisit this should the project grow to where this is necessary. It won't happen overnight. --Rschen7754 06:24, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Why make it a thing that has to be revisited in the first place? Why not just deal with it now? TCN7JM 06:26, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

With the current decline in editorship globally, this isn't a certainty, more of a "what-if", and wouldn't likely happen for a few years, anyway... when we change the rules in ACR at least every year anyway. Who knows, this whole thing might fall through and we might revert back to the old rules anyway. --Rschen7754 06:29, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I suppose you have a point. TCN7JM 06:31, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to limit it to one article at ACR and FAC per person. I respect the hell out of Imzadi1979 for what he's done by using the ACR machine pretty much nonstop since 2008 (because I wouldn't have the focus to write that much for that long, hell this is hard enough), but the ACR machine is gummed up and needs to be cleaned out. This can be construed as an invitation to IAR and just go to FAC with something if you're really confident in it and have written 20 FAs. –Fredddie™ 06:51, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Most of our FACs have been automatic +1s though if it went to ACR, so I don't know if it would decrease workload... also, I generally find stuff that needs to be fixed in every ACR I review, so it's not exactly pointless. --Rschen7754 06:58, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I rarely do the automatic +1 because I think it makes our project look like a bunch of yes men. My opinion is "We had our look, now we should step back and let the community decide if it's FA-worthy." –Fredddie™ 07:06, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Some reviewers do it, some don't. Having some do it keeps us from getting it prematurely archived due to no input, and the FAC delegates have said it's okay... I don't see a need to change our practice there, but anyway this is off topic.

I feel that adding FAC to the limit is unnecessary WP:CREEP, I don't see what this would solve... unless we're trying to discourage more experienced editors from using ACR, which I appreciate that some people want to do, but that's certainly not what all of us want to do; I always find non-trival things that need fixing in every ACR. I see the problem with having ACRs from "experienced" editors, or a bunch of ACRs where the only difference is the route number, dominating all of ACR, and that's why I've supported the per-editor limits, but I don't feel that more is necessary at this time - I feel it sends the wrong message. --Rschen7754 09:37, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, how would we handle removal discussions? I would suggest not counting those at all in limits, since if something's not up to standard, I wouldn't want a discussion to be held up over quota issues. --Rschen7754 07:01, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

One up, one down. Simple. –Fredddie™ 07:06, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I would support a limit of one article per nominator, which would create a natural state of at least n−1 reviewers for every n nominations (assuming that each nominator is also a reviewer, which is generally the case). Regarding the proposed hard limit on the number of ACR spots – how would the queue awaiting ACR be handled? If all the available ACR spots are taken and there are also several articles queued up, then it would be quite discouraging to have a (pre-)nomination that definitely won't be looked at for ages. - Evad37  10:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

My original theory was no queue, but a first come, first serve basis when the next slot opens. Mitch32 18:23, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Which would be problematic since some of us would be equipped to send another article to ACR within 5 minutes of one closing... which could lead to starvation. --Rschen7754 18:28, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Fairness quota maybe? Mitch32 20:29, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Instead of first-come, first-serve, for those editors who have nominated more than two articles to ACR, those editors who perform review at ACR have priority for the next open spot compared with those experienced editors who do not review.

Another idea is to limit the set of inexperienced editors to one article slot. I recognize this might be unfair, but it would allow us to better concentrate our reviewing and teaching capabilities on one newer editor at a time at ACR.  VC  23:33, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I might support VC's first idea if we could somehow set more objective criteria for determining this. Otherwise, without an elected person running the process (and probably >1 person since that person wants to nominate stuff too) this could end in significant controversy. --Rschen7754 05:15, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

(tl;dr - scrap the A class reviews.) All over Misplaced Pages I see projects and proposals dying. Editor Retention's "Editor of the Week" is being proposed to be wound up. "Editor Review" has been shut down due to inactivity. The Articles for creation backlog is regularly approaching 3,000 queued submissions with no sign of reduction, AfDs seem to have fewer !votes and closing more as "no consensus", and I'm picking GA nominations off the queue that were posted last July. We need to recognise that Misplaced Pages is, if not in absolute decline, in a state of downsizing. So we should seriously consider binning anything that isn't taking traction and looks like a chore. I did kick around the idea of A class reviews for WikiProject Rock Music, but the idea never caught on, and WikiProject Albums don't go near them. I've recently pooh-poohed the entire FA process on my talk page, but in short I think we have too many FAs and we should instead focus our efforts on bringing all articles up to a baseline standard, even C-class would be an achievement. Can anyone here read Norwegian sources so Drammen Spiral can stop being a stub? Ritchie333 10:20, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

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