Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Stratosphere (talk | contribs) at 16:37, 30 August 2006 (→Legend). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The altering of WikiProject templates

Someday I'd love to do that. But right now it's not possible due to the NC hysteria, the infobox backup, the browse mess, etc. Also we'd have to take it one state at a time. But at one point I'd like to do that. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Overhaul of page tags

Here is an example of a page tag being used widely:

Template:U.S. Interstate Highway WikiProject

It seems there are various methods of assessment being attached to these tags at the moment for some WikiProjects; from my limited amount of browsing, the most comprehensive of these is Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Trains, but they also reference WP:1.0, so many more are possible. For examples, see Talk:Winston Tunnel and Talk:Canadian Pacific Railway.

There is an opportunity for bloat there, but the two uses that are a Very Good Idea and should be implemented are:

• Assessment - determining the state of an article and its room for improvement
• Map classification - using the template to identify which articles are in need for maps.

Here's where it gets interesting; while WikiProject Trains has precisely one level of complexity, U.S. Roads has about three; U.S. Roads, Interstates and U.S. Highways, and 50+ state projects. Theoretically, then, there will be 54 different tags to edit, versus WikiProject Trains' 1.

In other words, when these templates are edited, and the people that need to be notified are notified, we need to keep in mind that we don't want Category:FA-Class Illinois Routes WikiProject Articles; we want Category:FA-Class road transport articles. It's easy to fall into the trap of the former. Even Category:FA-Class U.S. roads articles should be avoided.

Anyways, this is all sort of related to the maps task force, but if we're going to be modifying many templates, we'll want to keep this in mind. —Rob (talk) 20:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Further discussion on assessment-related issues will be located on the subproject site at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Assessment. I would hate to dilute the discussion when the Maps Task Force has just started. :-) —Rob (talk) 20:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Maps in SVG format

This is just for everyone's information. I'd prefer to upload maps in SVG, but ArcMap's SVG export sucks and the output tends to crash Firefox and hang Internet Explorer. That's the sole reason all my maps are uploaded in PNG. Stratosphere 21:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

• case in point, Commons:Image:Interstate_19_map.svg, the image page loads fine but when you click to view full size it explodes and Firefox cries and IE usually hangs. Stratosphere 21:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
  • You could probably just run it through Inkscape and it would correct the code. —Scott5114↗ 06:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I haven't had any success with that as of yet. Stratosphere 14:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
      • Tried saving as "plain SVG" instead of "Inkscape SVG" yet? —Scott5114↗ 14:28, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
        • yep Stratosphere 14:42, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Legend

The first thing we need to do is define a legend. Here's some ideas that I gleaned from various maps:

The numbers in parenthesis are the stroke width, which is derived by multiplying the number given and the width of "other numbered highway". The only thing I don't like about this is the double red line, which is close to impossible to do in Inkscape, but would make sense to most people. Ideas? —Scott5114↗ 15:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. All right. I'm a Rand McNally guy myself, so keep that in mind, but here's what I think...

1. I'd use green (for money) for turnpikes/toll roads.
2. How would divided highways and expressways be different? I'd consider merging these two, and where a divided highway is an expressway, using interchange markers (squares, circles or otherwise) to show that.
3. We might want to differentiate between state routes and county routes, where that level of detail is required. Also, U.S. Routes and state routes.
4. I don't know how I feel about separating Interstate and Other Freeway. At the least, I think it should be a dark, thick color, since I like the idea of having darker, thicker roads being more important than lighter, thinner ones.

So those are some of my thoughts. —Rob (talk) 15:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, regarding simplicity. Here's a good example:

No legend, and no need for a legend. Here's I-90, and everything else relative to I-90. I don't know if it can be done, but the more maps without legends (or with small legends), the better. At a certain scale, I would even be willing to sacrifice the subclassing of highways in favor of simplicity. I also think all the borders (town line, state line, etc.), if used, would be nice and obvious (with proper labeling where necessary, of course - nothing more annoying than a town line with no town name!). —Rob (talk) 15:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Rob on this. The amount of detail that a map actually needs will vary by the scope of the map. For example, a map for New York State Route 153 would have much more detail than a map for say, the New York State Thruway (or Interstate 90). With that said, I see the point for a legend - to standardize maps regardless of scale. So here's my $.02 on the legend:

• • Interstate is fine.
  • Merge turnpike, other freeway and expressway into one road type.
  • Divided highway - I use Inkscape myself, so I'm well aware of how difficult it will be to draw double lines. But it's probably the best way to do it, unfortunately.
  • Other numbered highway and below - looks fine to me.

May I suggest adding another entry for the highlighting of the route itself? --TMF 16:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

My input on this, is we need to be careful not to get too specific when it comes to maps. Misplaced Pages isn't meant to be a road atlas. That work is best left up to Rand McNally, Google Maps, Windows Live, Mapquest and Mapblast. Stratosphere 16:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

as added notes, it's dependant on the GIS data available whether or not one can distinguish between a 3 lane and a 4 lane highway. Double lines, like for the divided highway, tend to look like crap especially when a particular road has tons of segments to it. For example, using the GIS data for the national road network, I-96 is a pretty short highway, but the line is made up of 202 segments. When you apply the double line to the selection it looks bad. For anything other than Interstate, U.S. Route, State Highway, applying the different types of colors/lines indicated by the proposed legend will be difficult to maintain across the country since the information available varies from state to state.

When I designed the maps for the Interstates, U.S. Routes, and Michigan Trunklines, I went through many iterations before I found a map that was both useful and aesthetically pleasing. You can't cram too much information in there before it becomes useless. Stratosphere 16:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)