The Wikipedia roads thread

[NE2]

Reason not to use them: they take longer to fill in the fields, some of which are utterly useless. author=Staff? All of Imzadi1979's edits I've come across have been useless bling, more often than not turd polishing.

The readability of code (which is important for editors) was mainly about the nbsp crap.

[Dr Frankenstein]

Non-breaking spaces are not only useful, they're a typographical requirement in the English language, for example between a first and a last name, between a number and its unit of measurement, between a house number and a street name, etc.

[Scott5114]

author=Staff and the non-breaking spaces are both style points that have been required at FAC in the past and therefore are most likely found in the Manual of Style (though I can't be arsed to look up chapter and verse). I don't really care for the nbsp's either, but they serve a useful, if subtle, purpose in the rendered output, so I put up with them.

If you don't care about the polishing, that is your right, but if someone else wants to apply the bells and whistles to be helpful (recognizing you would rather not do it), reverting them out makes you a dick.

[NE2]

Not everyone wants to go through the featured article shite.

[Scott5114]

This is true, but that doesn't mean you should stop people who want to.

[Brandon]

Dan, chill.  You pick a lot of unnecessary fights, and this is one of them.  You do a great job of research, and you're letting this mar that.  Is this really worth the energy to make it into a mountain instead of flatland?  Who gives a rat's ass what he does for behind-the-scenes formatting?  Surely none of us who read it.

[NE2]

No, it's not worth it. That's why after testing the waters I'm not going for a swim.

[andy3175]

California had the same problem too, with westcoastroads.com, but I ran a tool to change all the links about a year ago. I'll see what I can do for the rest.

Unfortunately, it appears that on the German and Spanish Wikipedias, they also use the old links.

Thanks, I really appreciate that!

Nothing keeps you from doing it. You become an editor as soon as you click the "Edit" tab at the top of the page.

I haven't had time to do much of anything lately except work, and even if I had more time, I'd devote it to improving content on AARoads, not changing links on Wikipedia.

Regards,
Andy

[rschen7754]

California had the same problem too, with westcoastroads.com, but I ran a tool to change all the links about a year ago. I'll see what I can do for the rest.

Unfortunately, it appears that on the German and Spanish Wikipedias, they also use the old links.

Thanks, I really appreciate that!

I got all the WestCoastRoads, RockyMountainRoads, and LoneStarRoads links I could find on the English, French, German, and Spanish Wikipedias. It is possible that they are still out there on other language Wikipedias, but hopefully the changes will eventually propagate through.

I didn't do NorthEastRoads or SouthEastRoads as I don't think there are many links to there, but let me know if that is not the case.

[NE2]

The northern segment of SR 152 from Bloomingdale to Empire was first designated in 1923<ref name=ODOT1922_map>{{cite map |title=Map of Ohio Showing State Routes |url=http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/TransSysDev/Innovation/prod_services/Documents/StateMaps/otm1922a.sid |format=[[MrSID]] |publisher=Ohio Department of Highways and Public Works |year=1922 |cartography=ODHPW |accessdate=2013-08-18}}</ref><ref name=ODOT1923_map>{{cite map |title=Map of Ohio Showing State Routes |url=http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/TransSysDev/Innovation/prod_services/Documents/StateMaps/otm1923a.sid |format=MrSID |publisher=Ohio Department of Highways and Public Works |year=1923 |cartography=ODHPW |accessdate=2013-08-18}}</ref> however a highway numbered [[Ohio State Route 378|SR 378]] followed a similar alignment from 1916 to 1923.<ref name=ODOT1916_map>{{cite map |title=Map of Ohio Showing State Routes |url=http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/TransSysDev/Innovation/prod_services/Documents/StateMaps/otm1924a.sid |format=MrSID |publisher=Ohio Department of Highways and Public Works |year=1916 |cartography=ODHPW |accessdate=2013-08-18}}</ref><ref name=ODOT1923_map/> The modern-day southern segment of SR 152 from Dillonvale and Smithfield was designated SR 333 by 1932.<ref name=ODOT1931_map>{{cite map |title=Map of Ohio Showing State Routes |url=http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/TransSysDev/Innovation/prod_services/Documents/StateMaps/otm1931a.sid |format=MrSID |publisher=Ohio Department of Highways and Public Works |year=1931 |cartography=ODHPW |accessdate=2013-08-19}}</ref><ref name=ODOT1932_map>{{cite map |title=Map of Ohio Showing State Routes |url=http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/TransSysDev/Innovation/prod_services/Documents/StateMaps/otm1932a.sid |format=MrSID |publisher=Ohio Department of Highways and Public Works |year=1932 |cartography=ODHPW |accessdate=2013-08-19}}</ref> By 1937, SR 152 was extended south to Smithfield and by 1938, SR 152 took over the entire alignment of SR 333 and traveled continuously from Dillonvale to Empire.<ref name=ODOT1936_map>{{cite map |title=Map of Ohio Showing State Routes |url=http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/TransSysDev/Innovation/prod_services/Documents/StateMaps/otm1936a.sid |format=MrSID |publisher=Ohio Department of Highways and Public Works |year=1936 |cartography=ODHPW |accessdate=2013-08-19}}</ref><ref name=ODOT1937_map>{{cite map |title=Map of Ohio Showing State Routes |url=http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/TransSysDev/Innovation/prod_services/Documents/StateMaps/otm1937a.sid |format=MrSID |publisher=Ohio Department of Highways and Public Works |year=1937 |cartography=ODHPW |accessdate=2013-08-19}}</ref><ref name=ODOT1938_map>{{cite map |title=Map of Ohio Showing State Routes |url=http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/TransSysDev/Innovation/prod_services/Documents/StateMaps/otm1938a.sid |format=MrSID |publisher=Ohio Department of Highways and Public Works |year=1938 |cartography=ODHPW |accessdate=2013-08-19}}</ref> Between 1942 and 1944, the segment between Smithfield and [[U.S. Route 22 in Ohio|US 22]], which was a gravel and earth-surfaced road, was removed from the State Highway System.<ref name=ODOT1942_map>{{cite map |title=Map of Ohio Showing State Routes |url=http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/TransSysDev/Innovation/prod_services/Documents/StateMaps/otm1942a.sid |format=MrSID |publisher=Ohio Department of Highways and Public Works |year=1942 |cartography=ODHPW |accessdate=2013-08-19}}</ref><ref name=ODOT1944_map>{{cite map |title=Map of Ohio Showing State Routes |url=http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/TransSysDev/Innovation/prod_services/Documents/StateMaps/otm1944a.sid |format=MrSID |publisher=Ohio Department of Highways and Public Works |year=1944 |cartography=ODHPW |accessdate=2013-08-19}}</ref> With the exception of a small extension of the northern segment towards Bloomingdale when the US 22 freeway opened, the two segments of SR 152 have remained unchanged since.

No sir, nothing wrong with that.

[vtk]

Would it be an acceptable compromise to enter nonbreaking spaces directly into the source code, rather than using the &nbsp; entity?

[Scott5114]

Would it be an acceptable compromise to enter nonbreaking spaces directly into the source code, rather than using the &nbsp; entity?

Problem with that would be that you wouldn't know which spaces were breaking and which weren't.

No sir, nothing wrong with that.

The unreadability here is due to the large number of references in comparison to the amount of prose. It wouldn't be any better if the references were presented in clear text.

[algorerhythms]

I may be confusing Wikipedia syntax and LaTeX, but isn't there a way to define the references separately from the text, so you can just format the reference as something like <ref name=blah />?

[NE2]

The unreadability here is due to the large number of references in comparison to the amount of prose. It wouldn't be any better if the references were presented in clear text.

The unreadability is due to the references being all separate despite being to several maps within the same collection. One reference - [[Ohio Department of Transportation]], [http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/Planning/TechServ/TIM/Pages/OfficialTransportationMaps.aspx Official Transportation Maps], years - at the end of the paragraph is all that's necessary, but no, that's not enough for Mr. 1979.

[vtk]

Would it be an acceptable compromise to enter nonbreaking spaces directly into the source code, rather than using the &nbsp; entity?

Problem with that would be that you wouldn't know which spaces were breaking and which weren't.

Unless the textarea has a way of visually differentiating different types of whitespace.  Which is a feature that might come in handy in a few different situations here and there.

-moz-show-nonprinting-characters: none|whitespace|breaks|all

[rschen7754]

I may be confusing Wikipedia syntax and LaTeX, but isn't there a way to define the references separately from the text, so you can just format the reference as something like <ref name=blah />?

I've seen VC do that on some of his (Maryland) articles, actually.

Of course, there's VisualEditor, though whether it's stable enough to write a Featured Article yet is debatable.

[vtk]

I may be confusing Wikipedia syntax and LaTeX, but isn't there a way to define the references separately from the text, so you can just format the reference as something like <ref name=blah />?

As I understand it yes, you can do that if the same reference appears multiple times – for all but one instance of the reference.  The reference still has to be defined somewhere in the article, in one of the places it's used.  Of course, if a reference is used only once, there's only one place it can be defined.

[rschen7754]

I may be confusing Wikipedia syntax and LaTeX, but isn't there a way to define the references separately from the text, so you can just format the reference as something like <ref name=blah />?

As I understand it yes, you can do that if the same reference appears multiple times – for all but one instance of the reference.  The reference still has to be defined somewhere in the article, in one of the places it's used.  Of course, if a reference is used only once, there's only one place it can be defined.

Not exactly, I've seen it defined at the bottom of the article too, similar to Latex.

[algorerhythms]

I may be confusing Wikipedia syntax and LaTeX, but isn't there a way to define the references separately from the text, so you can just format the reference as something like <ref name=blah />?

I've seen VC do that on some of his (Maryland) articles, actually.

Of course, there's VisualEditor, though whether it's stable enough to write a Featured Article yet is debatable.

Okay, looking at one of the articles he's written, here's an example of using that format. All of the reference information is in one place, and the text calls the references by name rather than putting the information inline with the text.

[J N Winkler]

In regard to the text NE2 quoted, I am a little surprised nobody mentioned that there is an implied comma splice error in the first sentence ("however" used as a coordinating conjunction, which it is not), as well as at least one footnote call that falls within the middle of a sentence, which is often considered poor form since it makes body text hard to follow.

[Mr. Matté]

...

No sir, nothing wrong with that.

In regard to the text NE2 quoted, I am a little surprised nobody mentioned that there is an implied comma splice error in the first sentence ("however" used as a coordinating conjunction, which it is not), as well as at least one footnote call that falls within the middle of a sentence, which is often considered poor form since it makes body text hard to follow.

So what are you two doing to fix these egregious errors I've made?

[J N Winkler]

So what are you two doing to fix these egregious errors I've made?

I fixed the comma splice error I noted, which also fixed the (lone, as it turned out) instance of a footnote call within a sentence.  I haven't attempted to fix the citations since I feel that job should be reserved for an editor who is familiar with the source material, which I am not.

NE2 does have a point in that the citations in their existing format make the body text hard to read in code view (I had to refer back to the formatted body text in a separate tab in order to figure out where to locate the cursor to begin making my changes).  And while the unreadability can be mitigated to an extent by introducing an additional layer of abstraction (e.g. an alias for the most commonly cited source or well-formed superset of sources), that remedy--as well as the use of templates--steepens the learning curve for new editors and introduces maintainability issues.

[rschen7754]

So what are you two doing to fix these egregious errors I've made?

I fixed the comma splice error I noted, which also fixed the (lone, as it turned out) instance of a footnote call within a sentence.  I haven't attempted to fix the citations since I feel that job should be reserved for an editor who is familiar with the source material, which I am not.

NE2 does have a point in that the citations in their existing format make the body text hard to read in code view (I had to refer back to the formatted body text in a separate tab in order to figure out where to locate the cursor to begin making my changes).  And while the unreadability can be mitigated to an extent by introducing an additional layer of abstraction (e.g. an alias for the most commonly cited source or well-formed superset of sources), that remedy--as well as the use of templates--steepens the learning curve for new editors and introduces maintainability issues.

Overall that's not a problem with just road articles on Wikipedia; it is expected that all high-quality articles use references that are formatted "properly".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor (a WYSIWYG editor) would have solved the problem, but the Wikimedia Foundation borked up the launch, and the community forced it to be mostly removed from the site.

[Scott5114]

I fixed the comma splice error I noted, which also fixed the (lone, as it turned out) instance of a footnote call within a sentence.  I haven't attempted to fix the citations since I feel that job should be reserved for an editor who is familiar with the source material, which I am not.

I didn't know you had an account on Wikipedia (or if I did at one point, I forgot). The fix is appreciated.

[hotdogPi]

I have an account on Wikipedia (username 1 was already taken), and I have edited articles in southern New Hampshire (usually by adding junction lists) and northern Massachusetts (usually by fixing errors). MA 129 used to have 2 western ends, according to Wikipedia. Also, MA 28 had vandalism for 17 days (I-995, I-80, exit numbers on non-freeway sections), and I fixed it. I have about 70 edits.