Is the Clinched Highway Mapping site still active?

[1995hoo]

Does anyone know whether the Clinched Highway Mapping site is still active? The lack of updates to the Highway Browser doesn't much matter since I assume the person running the site got bogged down with other obligations. I've noted that it appears updated .LIST files containing user data may no longer being processed.

[froggie]

There's been minimal to no contact with the site owner in recent weeks.  We're not sure what's happening.

[NWI_Irish96]

I've been wondering the same thing.  My log shows the last update on the site was run back in November.  I've submitted two updates since then that haven't been processed.

[ET21]

Looking like it might have been sent to the death bed 

[1995hoo]

I suppose I may just continue to update my .LIST file on my PC in case it ever re-activates.

[english si]

There's been minimal to no contact with the site owner in recent weeks.

Though it should also be said that contingency plans are being created, in case the site does go down / takes too long to hear anything at all from the owner.

We're not sure what's happening.

Indeed, collaborators like froggie and I are as in the dark as everyone else.

I suppose I may just continue to update my .LIST file on my PC in case it ever re-activates.

I'm still maintaining the regions of the world I'm collaborating on, albeit not sending updates in until the ones I sent in last summer get ingested. I don't think the collaborators have given up and should there be a new site doing the same thing, or (hopefully) the current site stops being mothballed, then an up-to-date .list file is a good thing to have.

I'm even starting to bring up the European countries that I am not in charge of up to date (they are about a year behind) in case the contingency plans need enacting. I spent the weekend (doing other stuff as well) bringing Central Asia (countries ending -stan) up to date* - mostly improvements in mapping, rather than anything else.

*Which is probably the most pointless task ever (updating routes that no one has been anywhere near, that aren't mine to update, for a site that is mothballed). Oh, wait, no - I made Asian Highway files for those countries - that is the most pointless task ever!

[Scott5114]

I'm kind of surprised someone still has to manually process the .list files. It would be trivial to allow the .list file to be uploaded to the server by the user and have the site automatically parse it.

If a new CHM site has to be made to replace the current one, I'd like to see a way for the site to build the list files interactively. The text file approach is robust but can get tedious.

[1995hoo]

I'm kind of surprised someone still has to manually process the .list files. It would be trivial to allow the .list file to be uploaded to the server by the user and have the site automatically parse it.

If a new CHM site has to be made to replace the current one, I'd like to see a way for the site to build the list files interactively. The text file approach is robust but can get tedious.

If a new site were built, it'd be nice if it could automatically adjust the users' lists when a revision is made to a particular road or a waypoint is renamed, or else continue to recognize the old data. An example of the former would be when the A344 past Stonehenge was closed and the road number decommissioned–those of us who had driven it now had an error listed in our log files (mine still shows the error because I have not deleted the entry and probably won't). This is a situation where it'd be nice if it could still recognize the old data–there was a road there, even though it's now gone, so it'd be nice if the system could account for your having driven it. (To be hypertechnical about it, there's still a road there, but it's now restricted to shuttle buses from the new visitors' centre located further to the west at the A360 roundabout that wasn't there when I visited. I suppose someone could still "clinch" the now-existing road by riding one of the shuttles.)

In the case of a waypoint being renamed, it seems like it could be possible for the system to recognize the old name, sort of like a redirect on Wikipedia.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I had actually submitted my list as a first-time user recently and I had been thinking initially I had made a mistake in my file and that's why it had not been processed. Hope everything is OK with the owner.

[english si]

If a new site were built, it'd be nice if it could automatically adjust the users' lists when a revision is made to a particular road or a waypoint is renamed, or else continue to recognize the old data. An example of the former would be when the A344 past Stonehenge was closed and the road number decommissioned–those of us who had driven it now had an error listed in our log files (mine still shows the error because I have not deleted the entry and probably won't). This is a situation where it'd be nice if it could still recognize the old data–there was a road there, even though it's now gone, so it'd be nice if the system could account for your having driven it. (To be hypertechnical about it, there's still a road there, but it's now restricted to shuttle buses from the new visitors' centre located further to the west at the A360 roundabout that wasn't there when I visited. I suppose someone could still "clinch" the now-existing road by riding one of the shuttles.)

That seems rather difficult to do, and the risk of false positives seems too great. You'll just have to put up with the 'error' which just sits there rather hidden in your user log file.

In the case of a waypoint being renamed, it seems like it could be possible for the system to recognize the old name, sort of like a redirect on Wikipedia.

That exists now. In fact, that was there years ago, but is now handled more elegantly.

[1995hoo]

It does? Mine returned an error message in the log file when a road's terminus was renamed. Doesn't matter now because I fixed it to match the new label.

[Bickendan]

What should have happened is that depricated tag was flagged as hidden and a new one brought in at the same location with the new identifier to prevent .lists from breaking.

So if you clinched say US 26 in Oregon only from OR 10 to SE 39th Ave, the SE39thAve point would have been hidden but kept in place when the CesChaBlvd got put in when the change over to Cesar Chavez Blvd got rammed through. Otherwise, your list would break, and sometimes it's not clear why, even when the changes were noted in the change log.

In rare cases, no one would be using a point that gets changed; then hiding the old point is irrelevant and could just be switched to the ID. An auto-generated list would indicate which points were in use. Mid-line points tended to be safe to change without breakage, because most users would travel from highway to highway and not to an intermediary point.

Route reroutes, extensions and [segment] turnbacks tended to break .lists no matter what, however.

[rickmastfan67]

terescoj did have contact with Tim once in December about the site.  I'll let him comment about what that was about if he wants to.

[Mapmikey]

CHM is a terrific resource and I hope it is able to continue or be otherwise resurrected.

I always thought a neat feature to have would be an "inverse" button.  Suppose I pull up my view of routes driven in North Carolina and am trying to see graphically what I have left to do.  Maybe it's my eyesight but I have a hard time seeing all the fainter lines that represent the routes I am missing.  If I could hit the inverse button I could then have the missing stuff be bolded and it would be easy to see what I have left.

Mapmikey

[rickmastfan67]

CHM is a terrific resource and I hope it is able to continue or be otherwise resurrected.

I always thought a neat feature to have would be an "inverse" button.  Suppose I pull up my view of routes driven in North Carolina and am trying to see graphically what I have left to do.  Maybe it's my eyesight but I have a hard time seeing all the fainter lines that represent the routes I am missing.  If I could hit the inverse button I could then have the missing stuff be bolded and it would be easy to see what I have left.

Mapmikey

You mean this? http://cmap.m-plex.com/stat/region.php?u=mapmikey&c=usa&rg=nc&du=mi&sort=pa#th

[oscar]

One other way to do it:  Look in "travelers stats" for the region that interests you, find someone who's clinched most or all routes in that region, print out his map, and compare it to yours.

I found comparing my Maryland map to mdroads' very helpful to figure out what and where were my unclinched Maryland state routes.  Someone out to snag more Virginia routes (only a few state routes covered, at this point CHM has mainly Interstates and U.S. routes) could do same with mapmikey's map.  Other jurisdictions will have some other users on the top of their leaderboards.

[Duke87]

Basically, the owner of the site is really busy with real life commitments and has been unable to find time to update anything. There has been some work on trying to alleviate this by enabling contributors to run updates on LIST files, but I do not know how close to reality that is.

Meanwhile a bunch of folks did run a proof of concept and were able to recreate the site's maps in Javascript. So, if worst comes to worst, the site will get rebuilt in new form. For the time being development of that has ceased, though, because some indication was given that the existing site is "not dead yet!".




As for interrim strategy it should be noted that CHM's maps are rendered in PNG format, you can right click and save as and then edit them manually if you are willing to put in the work.

Personally I've been keeping my LIST file up to date, so that I can be up to date when/if the site sees another update, or if the site has to be rebuilt by others. And if neither of those things happens I at least still have the data and can find a way to do something with it myself.

[hbelkins]

I'd still like to see a clickable interface. Until that happens, I won't be participating.

[froggie]

Not sure how a clickable interface would be any better, since you could have up to a couple hundred clicks just for a single route...

[Mapmikey]

CHM is a terrific resource and I hope it is able to continue or be otherwise resurrected.

I always thought a neat feature to have would be an "inverse" button.  Suppose I pull up my view of routes driven in North Carolina and am trying to see graphically what I have left to do.  Maybe it's my eyesight but I have a hard time seeing all the fainter lines that represent the routes I am missing.  If I could hit the inverse button I could then have the missing stuff be bolded and it would be easy to see what I have left.

Mapmikey

You mean this? http://cmap.m-plex.com/stat/region.php?u=mapmikey&c=usa&rg=nc&du=mi&sort=pa#th

No I mean the map graphic.  While I can call up the list you linked to and I certainly know where all those routes are, it is limited in value if I am trying to put together a ride to go clinch some of them in terms of seeing the whole picture so that I can minimize backtracking or accidentally skipping 1 route requiring a separate trip to get.

This gets truer the further I venture from home - New Jersey has a bunch of those shorter 1xx routes and I don't know where they are so seeing them highlighted on the map would make trip planning better.

Oscar's method to approximate this can be useful in some instances but would be harder for states where I already am the worldwide leader... 

Mapmikey

[Bickendan]

Oscar's method to approximate this can be useful in some instances but would be harder for states where I already am the worldwide leader... 

Mapmikey

Yeah but a 100% clinch of DC isn't something to write home about... 

[english si]

Not sure how a clickable interface would be any better, since you could have up to a couple hundred clicks just for a single route...

It's also one of those things that sounds easy, but is hard to do (AFAICS from my limited programming knowledge)

No I mean the map graphic.  While I can call up the list you linked to and I certainly know where all those routes are, it is limited in value if I am trying to put together a ride to go clinch some of them in terms of seeing the whole picture so that I can minimize backtracking or accidentally skipping 1 route requiring a separate trip to get.

I second this, and (AFAICS) it shouldn't be hard to implement. Also (with the user 'blank') it also makes maps like this more clear to have red instead of pale pink

[hbelkins]

Not sure how a clickable interface would be any better, since you could have up to a couple hundred clicks just for a single route...

It would be a lot easier than having to refer to a master list of points, and then typing up your list from that master list and flipping back and forth between them while hoping you get everything right. Click and scroll, click and scroll would be a lot simpler.

Personally, I only keep track of clinched US and Interstate routes, along with Kentucky and West Virginia state highways.

[vdeane]

I don't find the pale unclinched colors to be hard to see, but if you need something darker, there's always the "CHM" map layers in the highway browser.  When browsing a route, the dropdown for where to get the map data from includes layers for the CHM systems (colored the same way user maps are, with "clinched" being clinchable, and "unclinched" being systems in development) and the percentage of users who have traveled a segment.

[Jim]

terescoj did have contact with Tim once in December about the site.  I'll let him comment about what that was about if he wants to.

Here's what I wrote about 6 weeks ago on the CHM forum:

"I did get an email from Tim late in December about the ongoing efforts to allow others to help with site updates and .list processing but no further responses since. I have some the tools installed on a hostmonster account that are the first step in this effort. So I wouldn't declare the site dead by any means."

Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything since.

I'm not giving up on the site yet.  I also have no doubt that it if and when it seems clear that the current site has permanently ceased operation, a group of us will find a way to recreate a version 2.0.  The problem is that there's a TON of code that's been written over the years that none of us have access to, and we wouldn't be able to use it without permission even if we had such access.