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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the WikiProject U.S. Roads template.
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WikiProject iconU.S. Roads Template‑class
WikiProject iconThis template is within the scope of the U.S. Roads WikiProject, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to state highways and other major roads in the United States. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.U.S. RoadsWikipedia:WikiProject U.S. RoadsTemplate:WikiProject U.S. RoadsU.S. road transport
TemplateThis template does not require a rating on the project's quality scale.
 

Cross-project tagging, part deux

Last discussed a little over two years ago, I think it's time to resurrect this proposal.

I've put the coding back into the template sandboxes, so if you look at Template:U.S. Roads WikiProject/testcases, you'll see that the sandboxed banner is displaying a section with:

This article is also supported by the following projects:

followed by the appropriate state-level wikiprojects. The idea is that our banner would also pass the appropriate article assessments to a state-level project, and quite possibly WP:WikiProject United States.

All of the roads project banners have a similar behavior now, passing article assessments into Category:Road transport articles by quality to make Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Highways/Assessment/Live provide the overall assessment statistics for all of the projects combined together.

In a further refinement, or a phase 2, I would also suggest we come up with coding that allowed "(Detroit)" to appear after "WikiProject Michigan" in the list. We could then include the major metropolitan area task forces or projects grouped with their states.

If our banner were to pass its assessments to WPUSA, I would suggest we do so in the same silent manner as the "Road transport" tagging unless a parameter were invoked to specifically show it. Imzadi 1979 → 08:09, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Tentative support I think this is a more long-term solution to local WikiProjects who insist on tagging articles on highways, rather than removing the tags. Of course, we would have to see how implementation would work (@Happy5214:) --Rschen7754 21:34, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comments I will think about this on two different fronts:
    • Technical: I haven't actually looked into how hard this would be to implement. But the banner is set to be entirely rewritten once Module:WikiProjectBanner is finished, and I am really loathe to make major changes to the current code if I'm just going to have to re-implement them in Lua a few months later.
    • Assessment: HWY/USRD and the WP:USA subprojects have different assessment standards. For example, an article that has only one Big 3 section, a really long RD, might be a Start in WP:USA, but a Stub in USRD. And don't get me started on importance ratings. How do we reconcile those disparate assessment systems?
  • I'll have a bunch of free time early next month, so I'll see if I can make anything of this. -happy5214 06:11, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
    • The original discussions included provisions to change the importance by state. (We already have the capability now for our state task forces, although it's rarely used.) As for the quality assessments, the state projects would basically have to inherit our assessment guidelines. Since USRD is the specialist project dealing with road articles, we honestly should be determining the actual quality of the article. Most of the other projects out there based quality sub-B levels based on word counts, yet we actually base ours on whether or not the appropriate information expected in the article is in the article.
    • As it stands, the MI and MD task forces are technically considered TFs of the appropriate state-level projects and they have been for some time. Yet our articles aren't falling into their assessments. (In the MI case, any potential difference in assessment scheme will be academic before long since there aren't many articles under GA-level left.) One thing we might want to implement is a switch that puts our A-Class articles in the states' GA-Class category and AL-Class lists in the plain List-Class since most state projects do not use A-Class.
    • I would like to get at least Michigan on this scheme as a test, if nothing else. The coding is already in the sandbox to display the state projects in the banner for all states. If we decided to limit that to white-listed states, it would take a bit of revision. Imzadi 1979 → 06:27, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The request to rename this article to Template:WikiProject U.S. Roads has been carried out.
If the page title has consensus, be sure to close this discussion using {{subst:RM top|'''page moved'''.}} and {{subst:RM bottom}} and remove the {{Requested move/dated|…}} tag, or replace it with the {{subst:Requested move/end|…}} tag.

– I request two moves to improve the consistency of the same type of templates as Template:WikiProject UK Roads, Template:WikiProject Australian Roads, Template:WikiProject Hong Kong Roads, Template:WikiProject Indian roads, Template:WikiProject U.S. Congress, Template:WikiProject U.S. Streets, Template:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases, Template:WikiProject Canada, Template:WikiProject Canada Streets. Sawol (talk) 08:40, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Oppose—the redirects exist already, so there is no actual proffered advantage to the move. While we are at it, I suggest that we trout the nominator for renominating the USRD template again after it was rejected twice less than three months ago. In the case of the USRD template, it has been discussed, and rejected, at least four times:November 2010, November 2013 and April 2014 and April 2014. The CARD/CRWP template was discussed in April 2011 when the move was rejected as well. If this move is rejected, there should be a moratorium against renominating for a year. Imzadi 1979 → 08:46, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
    • I was leaning toward doing back to my original "meh" from the last discussion in April, but of course Rich Farmbrough can't even spell my user name correctly, and he started tossing around stuff about ArbCom and editors not part of this discussion.... The nomination above still had no proffered advantage because readers can't tell if a template is transcluded with {{USRD}}, {{U.S. Roads WikiProject}} or {{WikiProject U.S. Roads}}, and there's been a redirect in place at the desired name since November 13, 2006‎. An editor, Ritchie333, someone who isn't the nominator from this nor the last request found an actual problem that a page move might solve that the redirect does not. If that's the case, then I'll support the change, if not, my indifferent opposition stands. Imzadi 1979 → 15:10, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
No problem! The template redirect Template:WPBiography is transcluded in over 125,000 pages. No need to change. Sawol (talk) 01:11, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
To opposer. Do you want to rename Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. Roads, Category:WikiProject U.S. Roads? Sawol (talk) 01:11, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Considering that the first solution would require renaming a few hundred subpages (which not even an admin can do with one click), and the second would also result in a bunch of work, no. --Rschen7754 01:55, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Sawol, Izmadi and Rschen have been opposing this with a great big dollop of WP:OWN for years. Even the stubborn Kirill Lokshin has gone with the community way of doing this, though not until after he had drafted a very severe ArbCom result against me. There are some things its not worth the effort, though I will however give you a moral Support message, and assure you that no trout is deserved. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:28, 25 July 2014 (UTC).
  • Oppose – It's not broken; it doesn't need to be fixed. TCN7JM 02:02, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Waste of time to move. Dough4872 02:12, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support once again the tired old shibboleths are trotted out against this move. If the move were made it would make it much easier to identify banner templates, and offer potential for increased simplicity all round. There are only three project with non standard banner names, and the Canada roads one was I believe at the instigation of Izmadi. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:28, 25 July 2014 (UTC).
  • Question - As a member of this project, I've never understood the vehement opposition to moving the banner. Yes, the name of the project is "The U.S. Roads WikiProject". However, there are other examples of standardized naming (i.e. the project home page is not located at Misplaced Pages:U.S. Roads WikiProject, but rather uses the convention of other projects Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. Roads). So, is there a rationale other than "the name of the project" for not moving the template to a standardized name? Perhaps if there is a documented rationale, it would help fend off the recurrent move proposals... -- LJ ↗ 03:07, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support I have only seen !votes that looks like WP:ILIKEIT and WP:OWN. All the other WikiProjects' banned are named this way. It might be that the 'project itself' is named one way, but it needs to be consistent. The cat and project-name is under WP USR, why not the banner to? (sorry, but... People seem to want to keep it "like it has always been", and are narrow-minded to only see it from this WikiProjects' POV.) Why should WP USR (and Canada) be an exemption to the standardization of the banner names? Please someone explain this, without saying "it works" or it is our name...since it is not. The official title is Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. Roads, and you might have an inside name, but that doesn't change the fact that the project itself (and the category) is located under the name WikiProject U.S. Roads. (t) Josve05a (c) 08:25, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - found a technical problem with the Articles for Creation helper script. The script picks up projects to assign new articles from, and appears to do it with any page in WP space that matches "WikiProject <name>". Under U, I can see Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. Congress, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. Streets and Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases and even Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. Roads/U.S. Route 66, but not this project, and I suspect the inconsistent name is confusing Theo's Little Bot into removing it from the available project list. Ideally, WikiProjects would be in a separate namespace, but we have to work with what we're given, and the name needs to change to support the bot.
Just for the record, although I !voted above, I have no fight whatsoever with those wanting to support this - everyone is entitled to their point of view and arguments seem to have been made with good faith. Furthermore, in the grand scheme of things, this debate is not too dissimilar to edit-warring over the colour color of templates, and it's worth putting that in perspective. (And, no matter how much we may wish otherwise, WP:TROUT is not actually policy!) Ritchie333 10:08, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
Can someone else verify what Ritchie333 is saying? It's not that I don't trust his judgment, it's just that this is the first time I can recall reasoning that wasn't "all the others are this way" and I'd like to confirm it. If it's true, I may be swayed after all. –Fredddie™ 14:52, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
The list itself (which the script uses) is in User:Theo's Little Bot/afchwikiproject.js - I've got no idea how it's generated, so I'll ping @Theopolisme: to see if we can get an answer. It must ultimately use the template name, because that's what it has to transclude onto a newly created talk page when an AfC draft is approved. Ritchie333 15:06, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
@Ritchie333: Canada Roads is listed there, and like the USRD banner, it has a redirect at the "Template:WikiProject Foo" style name. Unlike the Mathematics project, which was is listed with its non-standard template name, {{Maths rating}} with " Adding Mathematics" as the edit summary, it appears the Canada Roads banner was picked up automatically by the bot. Imzadi 1979 → 15:17, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
Would a redirect from the "conventional" name not serve the purpose? Also, Theo hasn't been that active lately - @Technical 13: do you know, by chance? --Rschen7754 17:53, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
If I had to guess, adding our project name should fix it. --Rschen7754 19:27, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
It looks like the project was on there, but this bot edit wiped it out. Manually adding it would work to a point, but runs the risk of being wiped out later should Theo (or anyone else maintaining the list) decide to do a bot run. Ritchie333 08:39, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  • NeutralSupport - Doesn't make a lick of difference either way. There's a reason we have the redirect system, and semantics over template naming is just that. Consistency makes sense though. - Floydian  ¢ 19:33, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Changed my !vote to support. Given some of the arguments above, it makes more technical and simplistic sense to just move the template and its subpages, done. My reasoning is 6-fold: 1) As noted by Rich F, these are two of three non-standard banner templates out of thousands! 2) The redirect system is a useless argument, because it applies equally to both outcomes. Moving the template won't disturb existing links to the current pagename. 3) As noted by Josve05a, the project itself and the categories are in the standardized order, but the template is not. 4) As noted in previous discussions (ie last July), the name is not compatible with AWB, which is inefficient for our many editors who use the program. 5) I don't understand the semantics of "Our project is the U.S. Roads WikiProject" vs "It's WikiProject: U.S. Roads". Does it really matter? Bring it in line with convention as far as page titles go and use one of the handy dandy templates that overwrites the level 0 header so that it shows up any colour you like when the page loads. 6) For all whimsical purposes, WP:USRD = Wikiproject U.S. Roads. Now the moniker CRWP, which I'm trying to phase out in support of WP:CARD, would have made sense in this situation, but such is not the case with how we (particularly you @Imzadi1979:) have strived to standardize the project names and shortcuts under WikiProject Highways. - Floydian  ¢ 20:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
In fact... since I can't find any discussion for Canada and it only seems to be in place because the project was set up by mirroring the U.S. project, I may just make the bold move myself in a few days. There's really no logical reason to oppose this, and if it helps with tools, searches, and future editors... then it should be done! - Floydian  ¢ 23:47, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Question: According to the section above, this template may have a pending re-write and transition to Lua coming. Does the coding of this template currently rely on complex sub-pages which would also have to be moved? If so, would the Lua rewrite eliminate the need for those sub-pages, and thus would it make sense to hold off on moving the template until the rewrite is done? -- LJ ↗ 06:45, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    The Lua rewrite is months away at the earliest. I'm waiting for @Kephir: to finish Module:WikiProjectBanner before porting. I'm hoping for a December-January timeframe. As far as I can tell, the subpages, at least as currently constituted, would no longer exist in the rewritten version. Regarding the subpage count, there are 20 subpages + 1 redirect. Of those 21 pages, 7 are sandboxes, 3 are documentation pages, and 1 is a testcase page. That means there are 10 subpages in actual use. Some are more complicated than others.
    I'm definitely of the mindset that it would be easier to move the banner during the rewrite process. Moving the subtemplates wouldn't be the hardest thing to do, technically speaking, but why move them if the whole thing is going to be rewritten anyway? If the final consensus is to move, we'll need to decide when it should happen. -happy5214 09:00, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    Thanks for the ping. I would not be so optimistic about the rewrite, though. I have to sort out some disagreements with S first, and I might not be available to work on this in the coming months. — Keφr 09:14, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    I would also think that it would be a long while before a Lua version would work with this banner since the tackforces are displayed in a different way to most other banners and that this template does not even use {{WPBannerMeta}}. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:08, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support It really makes easier for database scans, tools, bots, etc. if the WikiProject pseudonamespace has all projects. This does not affect the content of the WikiProject but makes life easier for the rest. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:12, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Doesn't make a great difference either way, but support to bring into line with the WikiProject's main page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:19, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
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