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Townships and jurisdictions on regional maps

See File:Map of NY Route 178.png or File:New York Route 458 Map with Labels.svg. I think having township lines, plus labels for each township, clutters up the map way too much. I also think having each hamlet, village, city, etc. in different shades of color is unnecessary. At the end of the day, we're making maps so that readers can quickly identify where the route is. Showing what levels of jurisdiction it goes through doesn't really add to a reader's understanding of that, and could be a bit distracting or confusing. I've commented as much to the creator of the maps; he disagrees. Thoughts? – TMF 00:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

After giving it some thought, I agree that perhaps the different colored shades are a bit too much information for the individual route maps. However, I still think the inclusion of the town lines are important for shorter routes. Especially for routes that do not cross county lines. Obviously, a road that crosses the whole state, such as NY 5, would suffer much clutter by showing individual town and city lines. But a road like NY 178, which is in a single county, could benefit by showing these town, and maybe even a few hamlet or city boundaries to help clarify where the route is, because it would help people locate the order of the communities it passes through in a graphical sense. Maybe it would look less cluttered if they used light gray (like the color standard for counties, but with thinner stoke) instead of the black lines I mistakenly used? Smb6009 (talk) 01:41, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I really like these maps, and they look great when following the links at the top of TMF's paragraph. However, these maps are too busy to be used in an infobox. When these maps are being used in the infobox, consideration needs to be applied to how they look in the infobox from the moment they are created. The text is not going to be readable at the standard infobox image size. Without labels, township borders are not that useful unless a very small number of borders are shown on the map. While knowing through which townships or incorporated communuties the route goes is useful information, an infobox map is not a good place to try to provide that information. — Viridiscalculus (talk) 01:53, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I changed the color of the borders in File:Map of NY Route 178.png to the correct type to follow MTF guidelines, with a lighter border color for the town lines. ... I know the dotted lines still appear to overlap making them look solid (seems to be a problem in Inkscape that I'll fix). Do you think it looks a bit less cluttered in the infobox like that? Smb6009 (talk) 02:20, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

And yes, I realize that it is a bit vertically stretched in the article infobox. But if you think the clutter is reduced, I'll fix the ratio to better fit the box. Smb6009 (talk) 02:24, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

It looks less cluttered, but that's because all of the useful information was stripped out. All the map tells me and our readers now is that it goes through two towns and intersects three roads of some kind and Interstate 81. There's no mention of what county it's in, no mention of what communities are in the area, nothing that really helps a reader unfamiliar with New York identify where the route is. I never said remove the communities; my suggestion was more along the lines of wiping out the different colors and using the "urban area" color for all of them. Lastly, I still think that there's little benefit to including townships on maps, unless the map is showing a route that's contained within a single township. Otherwise, the county is the more important and useful jurisdiction. (And to think, at one time people considered having county lines on maps excessive...) – TMF 14:49, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do about mellowing the colors of the communities to the "urban area" color so they don't stand out as a huge distraction. But I still feel that in the case of NY 178, and other rural roads like it, the town borders are important. Especially since many of these rural roads may only pass through one or two incorporated communities. I mean, perhaps a reader is semi-familiar with a town, but has never heard of the only community through which the route passes. (Say, for the case of NY 178, the reader has never heard of Adams, but they are familiar with the unincorporated community of Henderson. However, since it is unincorporated, they wouldn't see 'Henderson' if I left out the 'towns' layer, and thus, would not be able to accurately pinpoint where the route was. As far as I understand, your feeling on the purpose of these maps is to help a reader unfamiliar with the area pinpoint the road's location).

Secondly, I guess my idea of color-coding each type of community was, in part, to help distinguish the type of area the road passes through. If you've ever driven a road through a city, the environment through which you travel might be different than the environment through, say, a small village. Getting a bit off-topic, I looked at one of your maps so I could get a feel for your styles. In the map, File:NY_Route_57_map.svg, I noticed that you have the cities Syracuse, Fulton, and Oswego in all capital letters, but the smaller villages Baldwinsville, and Central Square in normal case. I'm assuming you tried to distinguish the cities from the villages in this map, perhaps for the same reason I am? I simply took a small extra step, and just used color to help the "visual learners" identify them easier. Smb6009 (talk) 03:32, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the last point, I don't necessarily use caps for just cities and mixed-case for everything else. What I do use is caps for major locations on the map and mixed elsewhere. Depending on the map, cities could be in caps and villages could be mixed, or villages could be in caps and hamlets could be mixed, or so on. I'm not trying to create political maps here, I'm trying to make road maps. I've only seen two road maps IRL that show town boundaries, and both were super-detailed maps of the Greater Rochester area. Actual road maps produced by Rand McNally et al use counties and individual locations, not towns, to provide context to the location of roads, and I believe we should do the same. – TMF 16:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll add a couple examples of what I did in Texas. file:Texas 3 map.svg shows a Texas highway about a county length. I added the towns for local reference, but also added an inset state map showing its location in the state. I set a voluntary road length limit of 50 miles before making the map an entire state map and excluding everything but a state shape and limited access roads file:Texas 16 map.svg, for size issues. 25or6to4 (talk) 15:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Section break

Opening up a separate section for the NY 458 map (File:New York Route 458 Map with Labels.svg) since the discussion above is focusing more on NY 178. Here, it looks like the location labels have been traded for townships and town names, resulting in a ton of clutter. – TMF 16:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The reason I was trying to focus on NY 178 was so I could get your opinion of whether or not the maps looked less cluttered, so I could then apply those themes to the rest of my maps to improve them. Smb6009 (talk) 22:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The new map on NY 458 looks absolutely awful. Two points: the line strokes are way too wide, and I don't get why the new map covers a smaller area than the old one did. NY 178 suffers from the latter issue as well. – TMF 04:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, instead of bashing me for what I did wrong, I'd appreciate it if you could tell me what I did right, along with some suggestions of how to improve the map. I don't think starting off your response with "this map is absolutely awful" is really the right way to respond, especially if you're trying to encourage people to contribute to this project. In any case, let's get back to your issue with the map. The reason I have the map at a smaller area is because the wider the view is, the less visible it is in the infobox, which is the main purpose for the map. I'll work on the sizing of the strokes, and I will try to widen the area. However, keep in mind that I have the inset map too, so no matter how narrow the view, the inset map shows the location of the road with respect to the entire state. I'm assuming these maps are intended to show the path of the road, and not necessarily the entire part of the state which they are in. Smb6009 (talk) 17:58, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, they should be doing both. – TMF 23:57, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

My opinion

I've been following what's been said here, but didn't feel I had something to contribute until now. These are meant to be roadmaps that are meant to be legible at 290 px of width in the infobox. It's great that someone can click the map to get a larger view of it, but the primary purpose of the map is the 290-pixel view in the infobox. If it can't be understood at that size, the map is worthless. As for other maps, please understand something, that unless a size is specified, the default thumbnail view is around 200 pixels. Editors with accounts can specify a personal default in their preferences (mine is 300 px) but any additional maps should be created with this in mind. If a map for the body of an article isn't designed to be shrunk to 220 px with clairity, then that map needs another size specified. If extraneous labels or if the boundary lines for smaller geographic subdivisions clutters the map, they should not be included. MDOT doesn't include township lines on the statewide map, so the only boundaries they used are county lines, and city outlines for the larger cities. There's a reason for that, and that's to reduce unnecessary clutter. Keep that concept in mind when creating your maps, or when the article gets to higher assessment levels, the map will need to be redone to pass those reviews. Imzadi 1979 → 17:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed entirely. Unfortunately, NY 458 is already a GA, so that's at least one map that I have to redo. – TMF 22:05, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Alright, the consensus here seems to feel that the purpose of these infobox maps is that they can be read easily in the infobox of the route page. Take a look at the article for New York State Route 178 now. I uploaded a map whose features are fully visible in the infobox. From that page, is a link to the original map that gives the more detailed view of the route. Maybe this helps the issue with the map being cluttered in the infobox?Smb6009 (talk) 22:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The markers are too big. They can be smaller like the NY 458 and still visible. Personally, I'm a fan of having an inset that shows where in the state is being indicated if the state's borders aren't in view, but with the Lake Ontario label, that helps to serve the same purpose. Imzadi 1979 → 23:00, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick and helpful reply, Imzadi! I uploaded a newer version with the shields a bit smaller... perhaps that looks a little better. As far as the inset, I'll work on that, but my schedule is starting to get a bit busier with school starting up soon, so it might take me a little while to generate it, as well as fixing the rest of my cluttered maps (including NY 458). Now, as far as the MTF compliancy issue for this map of Route 178, does this recent upload follow the required standards? If so, I'd appreciate it if someone could remove the tag that says otherwise in the Talk page for that route. Thanks! Smb6009 (talk) 23:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

There are a lot of flaws with that map. For one, a lot of roads and locations are missing labels. At minimum, US 11 and the large location north of Adams need labels. NY 178 ends at US 11, and also it doesn't look right to show a location as large as that and not label it. I'd also reduce the font size of the labels. I just did a test with PSP, and the labels are still clearly visible at two-thirds the size they are now. – TMF 14:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions (and patience), TMF. I uploaded a new version that you may want to check out. I labeled Routes 11 and 177, and the hamlet of Adams Center, as per your suggestion. I also made the text a bit smaller. I tried sizing the text to two-thirds its original size, and could not read it at the 290x172 size on my 17" monitor with a resolution of 1024x768. However, I did shrink the text to the point where I could still clearly read it at this size, and made it dark gray. I did not label Route 193, nor the hamlet of Mannsville - this was because those labels made the map look cluttered (which was the original issue with my maps). I realize that omitting these labels could infringe upon the detail, but that's why I left my original map linked to the page as another version, so the reader could look at the detailed map of route meant to be viewed as a larger size, without losing the clarity at the infobox size of 290x192. Are there any other issues with the map that don't follow the MTF guidelines, or make it difficult to follow the route? Smb6009 (talk) 16:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I asked for some input on the map on IRC, and the consensus was that the text labels are still too big. The size of the route markers was also questioned, but not by as many people. – TMF 04:20, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, perhaps you could give me a height (in pixels) that the text should be (with respect to the 290px infobox)? On my monitor setup, when viewed in the infobox, the text is about the same size as the text in the article. Now, I realize I'm making an assumption here, but I'll assume its safe to say that a screen resolution of 1024x768 can be well related to by most users. If I make the text much smaller, it simply won't be readable. And according to what I read above, "These are meant to be roadmaps that are meant to be legible at 290 px of width in the infobox". Thus, from what I've gathered, if the text is unreadable, "the map is worthless". I mean, maybe I'm taking that too literally, but IMO, the map can not be understood if you can't even read the labels at the infobox size. Smb6009 (talk) 17:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

As I've said above, two-thirds of the current size looked more than fine to me. I can't say what size others would like the text to be - other than smaller than it is now - nor can I say if cutting it by 2/3 would satisfy them. – TMF 00:00, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Arkansas data

Hey MTF, as far as WP:USRD goes, the state of Arkansas seems to be one of the neglected projects. (Maybe these are related.) I have been trying very hard to get the articles created, but it takes lots and lots of time. The maps here are all I have to use in terms of article creation and citations. The state highway system is not very well covered. But I was wondering if someone could help me find some data to use for Arkansas highway maps. I would like to include some maps in the articles that I create. The data that I have been able to find only has Interstates, U.S. Routes and "major" state highways. I would like to make maps for all routes, however. Could someone pleae help out the state of Arkansas? Brandonrush Woo pig sooie 22:51, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The priority is to create maps for any articles at GA-Class or higher that lack them. Until they're all done, you'll have to make requests and hope someone fulfills them, one at a time. Imzadi 1979 → 23:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

If someone could find the data for me, I would use the tutorial and not bother this project with lots of requests. Brandonrush Woo pig sooie 00:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

"If someone could find the data for me" -- what? If you want to make your own maps, you're doing your own legwork. Start with the links at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_U.S._Roads/Maps_task_force#Resources (especially the first two). You can check the website of Arkansas HTD for further data, but check the website copyright policy carefully, as state data may be (and usually, but not always, is) copyrighted. Xenon54 (talk) 00:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not asking for someone else to do my legwork, I have already looked at all of those items. That's why I was asking for help. I was wondering if someone else had encountered good Arkansas data in their own work. Brandonrush Woo pig sooie 02:33, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Priority for Arkansas should be expanding articles to B-Class and working on eliminating the errors, such as phantom concurrencies, that seem to plague that state's articles. Currently, only Georgia and Puerto Rico are worse than Arkansas when it comes to article ratings. Maps are a nice addition to a well-written article, but focusing on maps before the articles are ready to support them is putting the cart before the horse. —Scott5114↗ 03:34, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Since I'm the only editor actively working on Arkansas, I thought I may as well do everything for each article as I create them. I thought I could help the encyclopedia by making maps, and thus improve a few articles. If I got lucky, someone may even offer to help me out in achieving this common goal. However this project is clearly more worried about how many "good articles" get on the main page and how the stats look. A state highway can have a map even if the article is start class. Good luck racking up GA nominations, but for those that care about information over glory and remember what this project is about, you can find me working alone on Arkansas highways. There is a large need for editors, and you are all welcome to help me out if you don't like how I'm doing the Arkansas pages. Brandonrush Woo pig sooie 04:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you can get the Arkansas roadgeeks I know off-wiki to stop emailing me every week pointing out more errors in the Arkansas articles, more power to you... —Scott5114↗ 04:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Brandon, I find that attitude very insulting. For quite a while now, I've been the only Michigan editor. Now, as the only Michigan editor, it's been my job lately to get all of the Start-Class articles to C-Class or B-Class. When I got a pool of Cs and Bs, I've been able to pick and choose from them for the GANs I do. Then I can go through those articles, copy edit and check them against the criteria, and get an honest review for the feedback. Once I got a pool of GAs, I can pick and choose among them for ones I want to sent through ACR or even FAC. Same process with the higher level of criteria for those processes. Quit whining, and do your own research. I've made three trips to the Library of Michigan in Lansing, and countless e-mails to sources at MDOT to get information for the articles I've worked on. From the toils come the rewards. Imzadi 1979 → 04:23, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Scott, would they be open to emailing me? I would really like to work with them. Imzadi, I have used Mullins Library and sent numerous emails and letters to the AHTD. The majority of the time they do not even respond. There is no lack of effort here. Brandonrush Woo pig sooie 12:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

They do both have accounts here, though they are somewhat inactive. I'll send them a message and see if they'd be willing to get in touch with you directly. —Scott5114↗ 12:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, it would be a big help. Brandonrush Woo pig sooie 12:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi my fellow Wikipedians, I Have two important questions to ask, please reply:

Background: I been editing the Dominican National Highway System for the past year now and i been trying to improve the articles little by little as i have time and try to find sources. Lately I been stuck at the fact that I don't know what Mapping or Modeling Software to use to create these maps and here is where my questions come along...

1)What Map Software, if any, can i Use to create a series of Standardized Maps for the Dominican highways DR-1, DR-2, DR-3,etc? is there any particular one the group prefers?

2)Is it okay if I choose to use the Same U.S Road Map Standards for the Dominican Republic's NHS. The Standards are convenient and well-established for more than 5,000 maps so I see this as a convenient move...Is that okay?

I'll await a response. Thank you!EdwinCasadoBaez (talk) 16:30, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

1. Most of the people around here are using QuantumGIS/qgis because it's free, unlike AcrGIS that's a commercial product with a hefty licensing fee. There's a whole tutorial for creating maps, but you'll have to find the GIS data for the Dominican Republic.
2. Feel free to use the standards. We don't claim anything exclusive on them.

If you have questions, feel free to pop on IRC and ask us questions. (I don't do maps myself at the moment, but others who do are in the channel.) There are even an easy set of instructions on how to get into the highways IRC channel. Imzadi 1979 → 17:50, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

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