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From Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways, "Structure":
I am active in the WikiProject Disambiguation. There are many abbreviation-titled disambiguation pages that contain several highway references. I've recently done an edit series on one such disambiguation page, A1, which stimulated discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) (see "Revision of "A1" based on "Manual of Style (disambiguation)"" section). I do think that consistency in the treatment of highway disambiguation is useful and think that this WikiProject might be the appropriate place to address this in order to establish and maintain such consistency. My proposal as to the method of treatment is embodied in the A1 article and the referenced talk-page topic. Thank you for your input and further discussion. Courtland 14:00, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
{road name} {parenthetical country} ", an/a" {road type} "connecting" {start} "to" {end} {road name} {parenthetical country} ", connecting" {start} "to" {end}
The above article has been nominated for deletion. Uncle G 19:48:30, 2005-08-21 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals there is a discussion about {{ Canada-road-stub}}, as well as highway stubs for MD, MA, MI, NV, NH, and MO. -- Rschen7754
There are several US highway WPs out there... I am thinking of starting a WP to coordinate the efforts of all these highway WPs. Any thoughts? This would just set standards for these WPs and set some standards for state highway articles that have no WP yet. -- Rschen7754 03:40, September 13, 2005 (UTC)
What types of highways are considered acceptable? National? State? County?
I'm in the process of adding external links to he highway guides I've created for many North American Highway. Someone suggested that I should let the highway community know I'm doing that so they don't think I'm link spamming. I've got detailed photos and text of lots of stuff along the highways in Canada, Mexico and USA. I'd welcome your thoughts on my project and the links. If folks want to use photos (I've got thousands of lovely photos) from my highway guides, feel free to use them but do give credit. Thanks, James Love James Love 13:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if you've seen it, but the 400-Series Highway might be a good place to start for this, at least for Canadian highways :) Adam Bishop 20:25, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
New Zealand highways have portions varying from one-lane bridges to multi-lane, multi-level urban extravaganzas.
"State Highways" are largely government-funded. See various items of legislation with names starting "Land Transport ...".
Even they show a great range of physical forms, eg the Northern Motorway out of Dunedin is part of State Highway No 1 but is just two lanes most of the way, with no median barrier.
Is this the sort of discussion-starter you want?
I was planning to do something with Australian Highways, particularly ones that are a part of the National Highway, and ones in Tasmania (I don't know enough about the others!). A format similar to this:
Midland Highway,
Tasmania
| |||
Launceston - Perth - Campbell Town - Ross - Oatlands - Brighton - Bridgewater | |||
Launceston joins:
Bass Highway 1 (to Devonport) |
Bridgewater joins: |
Still needs a bit of work.. not sure whether to use green text, white text in a green box, or replace the green letters with actual shield graphics. The letters themselves just don't seem to look right. Comments? -- Chuq 13:42, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Midland Highway,
Tasmania
| ||||
Launceston - Perth - Conara - Campbell Town - Ross - Oatlands - Melton Mowbray - Brighton - Bridgewater | ||||
Launceston joins:
Bass Highway 1 (to Devonport) |
Conara joins: |
Melton Mowbray joins: |
Bridgewater joins: |
Glad to see you like it! I've done an alternate version of the table below (showing branches along the way). I'm just hoping it doesn't look too bad on smaller resolutions (i'm on a 1600x1200 screen now) -- Chuq 21:44, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Is this the right place to discuss US Interstate issues?
I noticed that pages about interstates have a heading called 'Number of miles'. I want these pages to have metric equivalents so that non-US readers understand. A 'Number of miles' heading does not make sense with km. It should be something like 'Distance' or 'Length'. I notice that there are a *lot* of road pages and they are very non-metric. Is there a place to discuss the issue of standard headings etc?
Bobblewik 18:57, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
The following articles have been nominated for deletion:
Uncle G 15:12:39, 2005-08-07 (UTC)
Thanks; I have commented. -- SPUI ( talk) 17:27, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
The following articles have been nominated for deletion:
Uncle G 12:06:36, 2005-08-11 (UTC)
The following articles have been nominated for deletion:
And the folowing discussion has been begun:
Uncle G 12:14:34, 2005-08-12 (UTC)
The article on Transportation is currently nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. Vote for Transportation there.-- Fenice 09:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
In Virginia, we have Interstate and Primary highways with unique numbers. But state maintained secondary routes have a numbering system which duplicates numbers from 600 up in various parts of the state. In WP, we are just now starting to get articles on some major secondary roads, such as Virginia Secondary Route 711, which is essentially as busy as and maintained like a primary highway, but isn't one because they want to keep it a scenic byway and discourage through traffic. This is an unusual situation with 711, but I see naming conflict on the horizon for others (i.e. there could be dozens of other roads which are also a Virginia secondary route numbered 711).
The article List of Virginia numbered highways does a pretty good job of describing the conflicts we will have with names such as this one, but I don't know how else to name the article. Do we have a WP naming convention for situations such as this?
It is strongly recommended that those working on articles about U.S. roads put this on your user page. -- Rschen7754 ( talk - contribs) 03:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot! Gflores Talk 17:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'm done with the disambiguated Road templates. I'll keep checking for awhile before asking that the templates themselves be deleted:
Template:Roadis (
|
talk |
history |
links |
watch |
logs)
now {{
disambig}}, {{
2LC}}, or {{
3LC}},
plus
Category:Lists of roads sharing the same title.
I placed the category under Category:Streets and roads, where it should be easy to find.
I'm sorry about the earlier problems with Tedernst, who didn't follow anything like standard procedure. Since I'm not a rampant disambiguation hack and slasher, please note that the pages are intact (or as intact as Ted left some of them). I merely changed the template and added the old category.
I hope things continue more peacefully on this worthwhile project.
Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-03-12 U.S. Roads. -- Rschen7754 ( talk - contribs) 20:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Might as well advertise this here - I'm proposing to move the disambiguation paces like Route 1 to list of highways numbered 1. -- SPUI ( T - C) 18:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps I am in the minority here... but I feel that an encyclopedia should limit itself to things that are truly notable. Many of the highways and roads connected to this project are definitely NOT notable for any reason. Given WP:NOT, I would suggest that the members of this project come up with a criteria for why a given road or highway should be included (simple existance is not enough), and delete articles for those that do not meet this criteria. Blueboar 13:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
It may be fine internationally, but that should not go on any U.S. or Canada road articles since we have separate projects for those. -- Rschen7754 ( talk - contribs) 00:37, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't think highways should be deleted, but it may be a good idea if they have slightly shorter article titles :-). Can someone take a look at things like Cuddalore - Nellikuppam - Panruti - Thiruvamur - Madapattu - Thirukovilur - Thiruvannamalai - Polur - Vellore - Katpadi - Chittoor Road and suggest perhaps a naming scheme for these roads? They have a number, so it is not that no other name is available. There is no true guideline or policy on article title length, but this is unsearchable and rather unpractical. Fram 07:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I have created a proposal for a Highway NorthBarnStar, to reward significant and excellent contributions to WikiProject Highways and its descendant projects. -- Kitch ( Talk | Contrib) 14:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 23:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed that the term "multiplex" is often used in articles to refer to a concurrency, something that I would like to propose should be avoided as per WP:NEO. This neologism only seems to be used by the road geek community, in particular this FAQ notes that it originated from a single newsgroup and that authorities generally use the more intuitive terms "concurrency" and "overlap". Often when the term is used it is linked to Multiplex (road) as if it is expected that the reader may not understand the term (and in fact said article was redirected to Concurrency (road) over a year ago). Sometimes the terms "duplex" and "triplex" are even used interchangably with "multiplex", making things even more confusing and inconsistent.
Additionally, the term "multiplex" is often used somewhat sloppily. For example, see [1]: it's used in several inconsistent forms, such as "becomes multiplexed", "is multiplexed", "has a multiplex", which can generally more fluently stated as "overlaps", "runs concurrent", "joins", etc. Krimpet 05:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Single-point urban interchange was moved to the new title Single Point Interchange on January 28 by User:Dab235. There doesn't appear to have been any consensus for this move, and the user also did several other questionable page moves at the same time (including Prince George, British Columbia to "Uj", traffic circle to "The Mega-Smallest Roundabout", roundabout to "The Mega-Rotary" and mouth to "buccal cavity".) However, I wanted to raise it for discussion here, since unlike the others it is a reasonably valid alternate title, and of all Dab's page moves it's the only one that wasn't reverted within a few hours. Change back if need be (don't forget to fix the double redirects!) But please discuss. Thanks. Bearcat 11:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
This is in response to something I noticed after someone had tried to move Capital Beltway to Interstate 495. I posted to Talk:Capital Beltway, but perhaps this is a better forum for a general discussion. Briefly, some articles on tertiary interstates have a single article that discusses all the separate routes, sometimes containing links to separate articles on specific routes if warranted. Other articles use the interstate route number as a disambiguation page with separate articles for each of the routes (which sometimes do not even have standard Interstate nnn titles).
I would like to see the former as the standard. Note: I'm NOT suggesting that we move Capital Beltway to Interstate 495--rather Interstate 495 would no longer be a disambiguation page and would include info about all the routes with a link to the Capital Beltway article for more details. However, the Capital Beltway article would not be included in Category:U.S. Interstate Highway system. Any comments? older≠ wiser 17:37, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I've moved Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways to the Inactive section of the WikiProject page, as it hasn't been edited since Nov 1st; I wanted to let you all know, and ask if you're still working on it. If so, feel free to move it back up into the active section. JesseW 08:22, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've done a few Florida State Roads, for example Florida State Road 15. The 'major roads intersected' section satisfies one of the goals of this project, making it possible to take 'road trips' from one article to the next. -- SPUI 10:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
There exist many alternate, business, bypass, and more exotic spurs of US highways. There is often more than one of a certain name/number. I suggest using {parent} {banner} ({unique identifier}), like U.S. Highway 1 Alternate (Jacksonville). -- SPUI 10:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Is there any particular way to best present the state and local roads and highways which are below the U.S. Highway XX level ? I realize that the terminology and numbering/designation varies. widely from state to state (and province?). I have been thinking, for example Virginia Highway 5, or VA-5 in the case of my home state of Virginia. Vaoverland 12:24, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/York Road - We must band together to keep articles like this from being deleted. Note how many delete votes there are even after I fixed it up into its current form. -- SPUI 01:45, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Would there be interested in creating a more general sister project, which rather than being about specific named highways, was about road transport, covering roadworks, street furniture and vehicles such as lorry and bus? A proposal has been made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Road transport, where it was suggested that input be gauged from this project. Laïka 16:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Being the founder of WP Canada Roads and most of its sub-divisions, i need help getting them active again, I can put together ideas, but infoboxes are out of my knowledge, thanks. Mitch azenia(Its my birthday!!!) 00:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I am curious what people think about state DOT articles and if they fit into the Highway project of some other subcategory of Transport. None that I have seen are under any sort of transport category, but it seems they should fit somewhere. Tell me what you guys think. Polypmaster 04:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd think that they should be in the highway project for the area, as well as the larger project for the area (since they don't only deal with highways). -- NE2 05:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I've just created an experimental new format for UK A-road articles at A1 road (London), with individual sections on each stretch of road, instead of either a single generic article about the entire road, or multiple free-standing stubs about each section. I'd be grateful if anyone with an interest would take a look and offer suggestions as to what they think of this as an article format and whether they think it would be useful for other similar roads that change their character repeatedly along their length — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Is there any interest in creating a road/highway version of navigation map components such as the ones used for railways (as seen on Channel Tunnel Rail Link) and waterways (as see on Kennet and Avon Canal)? The intention would be to show towns, locations and junctions along the route of a highway in a graphical manner. -- Chuq (talk) 04:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Midland Highway, Tasmania | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Here's an example which I did using the railway symbols. Obviously there will be many changes which will need to be made to accommodate roads, such as different junction types. Seeing as some additional symbols will need to be created, I think using a different colour would be good (e.g. dark grey) -- Chuq (talk) 09:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
A new Internet Relay Chat channel called #wikipedia-en-roads has been opened! This channel is the main discussion channel for all of the roads WikiProjects and road/highway related topics. Small discussions as well as large meetings are held here. Logging is only permitted when a large meeting occurs, which will be logged in the subpage listed below. Come and join us! master son T - C 00:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I just began a discussion on parentage and descendants at Wikiproject Civil Engineering which may be of interest to editors within this Wikiproject. I would be very interested to hear your comments, but to keep the discussion in one place I ask that you please post comments within the aforementioned discussion. Thanks! -- Bossi ( talk • gallery • contrib) 00:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Please note the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Linear features, and the examples given there. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 11:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Please see the discussion at Portal talk:U.S. Roads. -- NE2 23:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Please read and comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (exit lists)#Proposals for clarifications. -- NE2 05:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Would this article be a candidate to be a part of this project? Solarapex 05:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Id like to suggest that a UK Roads WikiProject be set up as an expansion of the current motorways wikproject and similar to US roads WikiProject. This would help have a uniform articles through out the UK road systems and also a point for people to combine there efforts and consensus to more easily achieved. For the time being i would like to see what support there is for this before making an official proposal? Seddon69 22:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
"Decommissioned" is a neologism when applied to roads. The examples at Talk:Decommissioned highway, [3], and [4] show that people will not interpret the term, which is an existing word in other contexts, correctly. (Essentially it's being used to say that a designation no longer exists; it may have been closed, given to the local government, or simply renumbered.)
I started changing to various other terms, mainly "deleted". Apparently that's not clear either, and I guess I understand that.
So what should we use? Should we make a full list of all articles that use "decommissioned" and handle each separately? What should be used in the infobox (for example, on U.S. Route 66)? Where should decommissioned highway be moved?
Please discuss. -- NE2 23:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I have proposed a change to the Road Infobox, I will repost it here as well.
== Deleting Highways ==
There was a recent kerfluffle about whether or not a highway can be decommissioned, or deleted, or whatnot. I would propose something along the lines of the following:
Replace it with:
|
vıdıoman ( talk • contribs) 23:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I feel that all the terms proposed have been more confusing or wordier than the original, and any confusion about decommission can be cleared up by simply including a link to the page that explains it: e.g. Route four was decommissioned in 1924.. — Scott5114 ↗ 23:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I challenge anyone to find any reliable sources for decommissioned highway, following WP:NEO. Unless that happens, we cannot use the term. -- NE2 00:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
A source for "Formerly X" - [5] vıdıoman ( talk • contribs) 00:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that nobody really talks about decommissionings except for roadgeeks and DOTs, and the DOTs have no consensus among each other for what to call it. The roadgeeks call it decommission usually, and yes, roadgeek sites aren't reliable sources, but this is one situation where WP:NEO should go out the window, at least in my opinion, because there's no other term that unambiguously satisfies the use of decommission and is reliable itself. I don't think we can't link to decommissioned highway just because it has no sources.— Scott5114 ↗ 00:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
All use decommission in reference to US 66. Thanks to User:W.marsh for providing the Google News search link. — Scott5114 ↗ 01:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
A note from the peanut gallery: I am a U.S. English speaker, not a "road geek", and I think "decommissioned" is a perfectly fine word to be using here. (I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.)
To me, "decommission" means "lose a formal status" (e.g. a commission) and, depending on circumstances, may mean that the decommissioned entity remains in full use (albeit without the former designation), remains in partial use, is removed from use but still exists (perhaps "mothballed"), or is dismantled/demolished.
If someone told me that a numbered highway had been "decommissioned", I'd understand that it had lost its designation. I might wonder whether it was still in use or had been demolished, but I'd probably guess that it was still in use, because I would imagine that the speaker would have said "demolished" or "removed" otherwise. — Steve Summit ( talk) 02:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
While I have not seen any official usage by DOTs of "decommissioned", it does appear that the word is in somewhat common use in certains books about U.S. highways, as can be seen in many of the hits in Google Books. This seems to be an acceptable, succint, and not entirely uncommon usage of the word without having to worry about variations across state DOTs. This is somewhat like using "freeway" as an all-encompasisng word for "highways with full control of access and no cross traffic". -- Polaron | Talk 02:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
“ | U.S. Route 66 was decommissioned piecemeal as Interstate construction progressed[...] On January 17, 1977, at the other end of the highway, Route 66 was decommissioned from the Loop in downtown Chicago to Joplin, Missouri. | ” |
— The Roads that Built America by Dan McNichol, p. 77 |
— Scott5114 ↗ 03:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I've put together a (hopefully) full list of pages that contain or contained the term at User:NE2/decommissioned; this includes the ones I changed to deleted or something else. Note that this also includes ones which simply have a blank "decommissioned=" in the infobox code. Hopefully we can clarify the language in each of these, not with decommissioned or deleted, but with a better wording. -- NE2 16:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Regardless, the word 'decommissioned' was used. They understood what it meant, and one would assume readers would as well. vıdıoman ( talk • contribs) 02:59, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
“ | U.S. Highway 91 has since been decommissioned in Nevada. | ” |
— American Trails Revisited by Lyn R. Wilkerson |
[Indent reset] I think this is a circumstance where we can use common sense and Ignore WP:NEO in this case.
2. Don't follow written instructions mindlessly, but rather, consider how the encyclopedia is improved or damaged by each edit. --From WP:WIARM
-- Son 16:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Here's an interesting find: [6] uses "Renamed or decommissioned", as if a route is only decommissioned when it ceases to be state-maintained. -- NE2 09:45, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
In articles about specific state routes, we should as much as possible use the term that state's DOT uses, if it is not too wordy. For generic cases, as well as in the infobox, a suitable word to use might be "abolished", which is the opposite of "established". For people who might deem that this too is a neologism, another suggestion is to use "eliminated", which is the term that is used by AASHTO in their U.S. Route Numbering Electronic Application Form. -- Polaron | Talk 19:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Polaron's suggestion might only apply to American routes. Canada does not have federal level highways and eliminated is never used to describe highways (or anything related to physical infrastructure that I know of) in Canada. Additionally, our transportation ministries don't have a term for this at all. NE2's idea would make more sense, and I don't think being wordy is a problem as long as it is kept down to 10 words or less. A more wordy term would actually be better as it would explain what actually happened, as opposed to a blanket term which could mane one of many things. vıdıoman ( talk • contribs) 20:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Can we come to an agreement that we can clarify language - not replace "decommissioned" with "deleted", which I was wrong to do, but actually make it clearer exactly what happened - was the number replaced with another? Was it removed from a road that already had another number? Was it turned back to the county? -- NE2 00:11, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
What would we use for the infobox? --
Holderca1 01:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
By the way, on a somewhat related note, I've compiled User:NE2/former, a list of highway articles that use the "decommissioned" or "deleted" parameter, and where they could be merged. Some merges are obvious ( Texas State Highway Loop 420/ U.S. Route 83 Business (Laredo, Texas)/ Interstate 35 Business (Laredo, Texas)), some less so. -- NE2 03:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Can I do it now? Nobody's said anything for a while, and the RFC is much more balanced. -- NE2 20:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no consensus here for the removal of decommissioned. -- Rschen7754 ( T C) 05:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Standard operating procedure for when no consensus is reached is to default to the status quo. — Scott5114 ↗ 20:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
(reset)Just like a military officer can lose his commission, come back as a civilian doing the same job and getting paid by the federal government. -- Holderca1 23:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
If there is "no consensus needed" to fix "neologisms" as you claim, then why did you start this discussion? -- Rschen7754 ( T C) 00:04, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay, how about this definition of decommission as it applies to highways: has had its authorization as a federal or state highway removed. Using this definition of decommission, "to revoke the commission of." To clarify what commission is, "the state of being authorized to perform certain duties or tasks." The authorized part shouldn't be too hard for people to grasp since it takes some type of authorization to give a highway a designation. Then we get to "to perform certain duties or tasks," well I think that is pretty obvious. The strip of asphalt is being authorized to be a state highway, interstate, etc... to provide a means for people to drive from one place to another. An interstate has different duties than a state highway does. Hopefully this can put an end to this, but I highly doubt it. -- Holderca1 13:59, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I've skimmed through the above "Decommissioned" discussion section, and the discussion seemed to be getting less constructive as it went on, so I'd like to restart the discussion here. From my quick reading, it appears the dispute seems to be about the use of words like "Decommissioned" when referring to a highway's status change. I have some thoughts, but first I'd like to make sure everybody is on the same page here. To help get everything organized, I'd like for each involved user to crate a subsection here briefly stating their view of the dispute, and thoughts on the issue. If you see another user's section that you agree with, feel free to just indicate your agreement in their section, as opposed to creating another section that says the same thing, other than that, please don't reply to other users' sections. I hope we can have a calm, orderly discussion and get this sorted out soon. Mr. Z-man 19:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I hope you don't mind, I have made bold an important sentence that has not been followed by other contributors. vıdıoman ( talk • contribs) 00:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Woot. Some sort of order!
The argument seems to be that decommissioned is made-up term (in semi-wide usage in the roadgeek community) that refers to a highway that once was a certain route number, but is no longer. The physical highway may or may not still exist; whether or not it does isn't addressed by the term "decommissioned".
State highway departments don't keep track of former/decommissioned state routes, so the argument is over something that technically doesn't exist according to any given authority. I'd keep "decommissioned" because in my humble opinion, decommissioned has become notable in itself, particularly w/ reference to U.S. 66. "Former" is acceptable (an exit on I-88 (IL) is marked as "Former Illinois 2", but honestly, can you see "Decommissioned Illinois 2" on a sign?). "Old" is also acceptable, if not... generic. But many cities have signage similar to "Old Seward Highway", "Old US. 76", so it wouldn't be entirely made-up. — Rob ( talk) 21:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
My argument is very simple: "To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term—not books and papers that use the term." No reliable sources that define decommission as it applies to highways have been found. The general dictionary definition is to "remove from service" or "shut down", something that does not generally describe a decommissioned highway.
For clarification, the following cases are all being called "decommissioning":
Without a definition, we cannot do this, except in the case of SR 480, where it is being shut down. We should use clearer language, even if it is slightly longer, for instance:
We don't need to use decommissioned, and we shouldn't, because it will not be understood by those who have not seen it before. -- NE2 22:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
There's also no reason at all for reversions like [9] that not only muddle the wording but also remove information and restore typos. -- NE2 23:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Decommission generally means 'stricken from the highway system', be that the state highway system, the U.S. route system, or occasionally, the Interstate System. There are nuances, of course, and that seems to be the hangup here: The term does not specify what happens afterward, but generally it either becomes part of another route or downgraded to a lower system (US 66→SH 66, SH 126→CR 240, etc.) Decommission usually refers to the designation as a whole (U.S. 66 was decommissioned in 1985) but occasionally refers to a segment of the route (In 1984, Arizona also saw its final stretch of highway decommissioned with the completion of Interstate 40 just north of Williams, Arizona.)
Whether this matches with dictionary definition of decommission seems to be a matter of opinion.
Okay, the problem seems to be that "decommissioned" might be being used in so many situations that it might be confusing. On the other hand, decommissioned is somewhat common usage and there are many alternatives, each with varying meanings, histories, and amount of usage. Perhaps some sort of criteria should be established for when different terms should be used? Based on the definition of the word, what actually happened, what sources say, what the common usage is, etc. Mr. Z-man 22:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I think there are many issues here (aside from NE2's conduct, but that's mostly fallen by the wayside since the RfC). The first is whether decommission is a neologism. This should probably be taken care of first, because if it is, then others are moot. Discussion seems to trend towards saying that it's probably not, with NE2 and (maybe?) O dissenting.
Second, there's the issue of what decommissioned means. I have attempted to lay this out above, and it seems that all parties agree as to what the core definition is. Where the disagreement starts is whether it is unclear or not. My personal belief is that the word can still be used for the act of the route being stricken, and then what happens to the roadbed be handled separately; emphasis should be placed on the removal of the designation when using the term decommission.
Another objection to removing the word is that no good alternatives exist to replace it. Deleted has come across to many users (especially those outside the project) as novel or bizarre; most other alternatives have been rejected as being wordy. Indeed, most of us feel that without decommissioned we'll have to resort to clumsier prose.
Perhaps the best thing to do is limit the scope of decommissioned to fewer situations than it is applied to now. When a highway is completely and totally changed from one number to another (i.e. when OK-41 became OK-152) we should absolutely use renumber. OK-41 didn't die, it just had a name change. For when one segment is removed, which tends to happen at the ends, we have truncated - except in instances when a chunk is taken out of the middle, where decommissioned probably remains the best choice. That leaves only the other instance of when decommissioned is used: to signify the entire route was stricken from the system, and I believe this is the definition that the word is best used for. — Scott5114 ↗ 00:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Interesting fact of the moment - Illinois calls it "abandoned". See (605 ILCS 5/4‑206) here. Now wouldn't that terminology be confusing? — Rob ( talk) 17:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
From Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways, "Structure":
I am active in the WikiProject Disambiguation. There are many abbreviation-titled disambiguation pages that contain several highway references. I've recently done an edit series on one such disambiguation page, A1, which stimulated discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) (see "Revision of "A1" based on "Manual of Style (disambiguation)"" section). I do think that consistency in the treatment of highway disambiguation is useful and think that this WikiProject might be the appropriate place to address this in order to establish and maintain such consistency. My proposal as to the method of treatment is embodied in the A1 article and the referenced talk-page topic. Thank you for your input and further discussion. Courtland 14:00, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
{road name} {parenthetical country} ", an/a" {road type} "connecting" {start} "to" {end} {road name} {parenthetical country} ", connecting" {start} "to" {end}
The above article has been nominated for deletion. Uncle G 19:48:30, 2005-08-21 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals there is a discussion about {{ Canada-road-stub}}, as well as highway stubs for MD, MA, MI, NV, NH, and MO. -- Rschen7754
There are several US highway WPs out there... I am thinking of starting a WP to coordinate the efforts of all these highway WPs. Any thoughts? This would just set standards for these WPs and set some standards for state highway articles that have no WP yet. -- Rschen7754 03:40, September 13, 2005 (UTC)
What types of highways are considered acceptable? National? State? County?
I'm in the process of adding external links to he highway guides I've created for many North American Highway. Someone suggested that I should let the highway community know I'm doing that so they don't think I'm link spamming. I've got detailed photos and text of lots of stuff along the highways in Canada, Mexico and USA. I'd welcome your thoughts on my project and the links. If folks want to use photos (I've got thousands of lovely photos) from my highway guides, feel free to use them but do give credit. Thanks, James Love James Love 13:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if you've seen it, but the 400-Series Highway might be a good place to start for this, at least for Canadian highways :) Adam Bishop 20:25, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
New Zealand highways have portions varying from one-lane bridges to multi-lane, multi-level urban extravaganzas.
"State Highways" are largely government-funded. See various items of legislation with names starting "Land Transport ...".
Even they show a great range of physical forms, eg the Northern Motorway out of Dunedin is part of State Highway No 1 but is just two lanes most of the way, with no median barrier.
Is this the sort of discussion-starter you want?
I was planning to do something with Australian Highways, particularly ones that are a part of the National Highway, and ones in Tasmania (I don't know enough about the others!). A format similar to this:
Midland Highway,
Tasmania
| |||
Launceston - Perth - Campbell Town - Ross - Oatlands - Brighton - Bridgewater | |||
Launceston joins:
Bass Highway 1 (to Devonport) |
Bridgewater joins: |
Still needs a bit of work.. not sure whether to use green text, white text in a green box, or replace the green letters with actual shield graphics. The letters themselves just don't seem to look right. Comments? -- Chuq 13:42, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Midland Highway,
Tasmania
| ||||
Launceston - Perth - Conara - Campbell Town - Ross - Oatlands - Melton Mowbray - Brighton - Bridgewater | ||||
Launceston joins:
Bass Highway 1 (to Devonport) |
Conara joins: |
Melton Mowbray joins: |
Bridgewater joins: |
Glad to see you like it! I've done an alternate version of the table below (showing branches along the way). I'm just hoping it doesn't look too bad on smaller resolutions (i'm on a 1600x1200 screen now) -- Chuq 21:44, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Is this the right place to discuss US Interstate issues?
I noticed that pages about interstates have a heading called 'Number of miles'. I want these pages to have metric equivalents so that non-US readers understand. A 'Number of miles' heading does not make sense with km. It should be something like 'Distance' or 'Length'. I notice that there are a *lot* of road pages and they are very non-metric. Is there a place to discuss the issue of standard headings etc?
Bobblewik 18:57, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
The following articles have been nominated for deletion:
Uncle G 15:12:39, 2005-08-07 (UTC)
Thanks; I have commented. -- SPUI ( talk) 17:27, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
The following articles have been nominated for deletion:
Uncle G 12:06:36, 2005-08-11 (UTC)
The following articles have been nominated for deletion:
And the folowing discussion has been begun:
Uncle G 12:14:34, 2005-08-12 (UTC)
The article on Transportation is currently nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. Vote for Transportation there.-- Fenice 09:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
In Virginia, we have Interstate and Primary highways with unique numbers. But state maintained secondary routes have a numbering system which duplicates numbers from 600 up in various parts of the state. In WP, we are just now starting to get articles on some major secondary roads, such as Virginia Secondary Route 711, which is essentially as busy as and maintained like a primary highway, but isn't one because they want to keep it a scenic byway and discourage through traffic. This is an unusual situation with 711, but I see naming conflict on the horizon for others (i.e. there could be dozens of other roads which are also a Virginia secondary route numbered 711).
The article List of Virginia numbered highways does a pretty good job of describing the conflicts we will have with names such as this one, but I don't know how else to name the article. Do we have a WP naming convention for situations such as this?
It is strongly recommended that those working on articles about U.S. roads put this on your user page. -- Rschen7754 ( talk - contribs) 03:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot! Gflores Talk 17:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'm done with the disambiguated Road templates. I'll keep checking for awhile before asking that the templates themselves be deleted:
Template:Roadis (
|
talk |
history |
links |
watch |
logs)
now {{
disambig}}, {{
2LC}}, or {{
3LC}},
plus
Category:Lists of roads sharing the same title.
I placed the category under Category:Streets and roads, where it should be easy to find.
I'm sorry about the earlier problems with Tedernst, who didn't follow anything like standard procedure. Since I'm not a rampant disambiguation hack and slasher, please note that the pages are intact (or as intact as Ted left some of them). I merely changed the template and added the old category.
I hope things continue more peacefully on this worthwhile project.
Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-03-12 U.S. Roads. -- Rschen7754 ( talk - contribs) 20:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Might as well advertise this here - I'm proposing to move the disambiguation paces like Route 1 to list of highways numbered 1. -- SPUI ( T - C) 18:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps I am in the minority here... but I feel that an encyclopedia should limit itself to things that are truly notable. Many of the highways and roads connected to this project are definitely NOT notable for any reason. Given WP:NOT, I would suggest that the members of this project come up with a criteria for why a given road or highway should be included (simple existance is not enough), and delete articles for those that do not meet this criteria. Blueboar 13:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
It may be fine internationally, but that should not go on any U.S. or Canada road articles since we have separate projects for those. -- Rschen7754 ( talk - contribs) 00:37, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't think highways should be deleted, but it may be a good idea if they have slightly shorter article titles :-). Can someone take a look at things like Cuddalore - Nellikuppam - Panruti - Thiruvamur - Madapattu - Thirukovilur - Thiruvannamalai - Polur - Vellore - Katpadi - Chittoor Road and suggest perhaps a naming scheme for these roads? They have a number, so it is not that no other name is available. There is no true guideline or policy on article title length, but this is unsearchable and rather unpractical. Fram 07:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I have created a proposal for a Highway NorthBarnStar, to reward significant and excellent contributions to WikiProject Highways and its descendant projects. -- Kitch ( Talk | Contrib) 14:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 23:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed that the term "multiplex" is often used in articles to refer to a concurrency, something that I would like to propose should be avoided as per WP:NEO. This neologism only seems to be used by the road geek community, in particular this FAQ notes that it originated from a single newsgroup and that authorities generally use the more intuitive terms "concurrency" and "overlap". Often when the term is used it is linked to Multiplex (road) as if it is expected that the reader may not understand the term (and in fact said article was redirected to Concurrency (road) over a year ago). Sometimes the terms "duplex" and "triplex" are even used interchangably with "multiplex", making things even more confusing and inconsistent.
Additionally, the term "multiplex" is often used somewhat sloppily. For example, see [1]: it's used in several inconsistent forms, such as "becomes multiplexed", "is multiplexed", "has a multiplex", which can generally more fluently stated as "overlaps", "runs concurrent", "joins", etc. Krimpet 05:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Single-point urban interchange was moved to the new title Single Point Interchange on January 28 by User:Dab235. There doesn't appear to have been any consensus for this move, and the user also did several other questionable page moves at the same time (including Prince George, British Columbia to "Uj", traffic circle to "The Mega-Smallest Roundabout", roundabout to "The Mega-Rotary" and mouth to "buccal cavity".) However, I wanted to raise it for discussion here, since unlike the others it is a reasonably valid alternate title, and of all Dab's page moves it's the only one that wasn't reverted within a few hours. Change back if need be (don't forget to fix the double redirects!) But please discuss. Thanks. Bearcat 11:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
This is in response to something I noticed after someone had tried to move Capital Beltway to Interstate 495. I posted to Talk:Capital Beltway, but perhaps this is a better forum for a general discussion. Briefly, some articles on tertiary interstates have a single article that discusses all the separate routes, sometimes containing links to separate articles on specific routes if warranted. Other articles use the interstate route number as a disambiguation page with separate articles for each of the routes (which sometimes do not even have standard Interstate nnn titles).
I would like to see the former as the standard. Note: I'm NOT suggesting that we move Capital Beltway to Interstate 495--rather Interstate 495 would no longer be a disambiguation page and would include info about all the routes with a link to the Capital Beltway article for more details. However, the Capital Beltway article would not be included in Category:U.S. Interstate Highway system. Any comments? older≠ wiser 17:37, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I've moved Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways to the Inactive section of the WikiProject page, as it hasn't been edited since Nov 1st; I wanted to let you all know, and ask if you're still working on it. If so, feel free to move it back up into the active section. JesseW 08:22, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've done a few Florida State Roads, for example Florida State Road 15. The 'major roads intersected' section satisfies one of the goals of this project, making it possible to take 'road trips' from one article to the next. -- SPUI 10:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
There exist many alternate, business, bypass, and more exotic spurs of US highways. There is often more than one of a certain name/number. I suggest using {parent} {banner} ({unique identifier}), like U.S. Highway 1 Alternate (Jacksonville). -- SPUI 10:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Is there any particular way to best present the state and local roads and highways which are below the U.S. Highway XX level ? I realize that the terminology and numbering/designation varies. widely from state to state (and province?). I have been thinking, for example Virginia Highway 5, or VA-5 in the case of my home state of Virginia. Vaoverland 12:24, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/York Road - We must band together to keep articles like this from being deleted. Note how many delete votes there are even after I fixed it up into its current form. -- SPUI 01:45, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Would there be interested in creating a more general sister project, which rather than being about specific named highways, was about road transport, covering roadworks, street furniture and vehicles such as lorry and bus? A proposal has been made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Road transport, where it was suggested that input be gauged from this project. Laïka 16:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Being the founder of WP Canada Roads and most of its sub-divisions, i need help getting them active again, I can put together ideas, but infoboxes are out of my knowledge, thanks. Mitch azenia(Its my birthday!!!) 00:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I am curious what people think about state DOT articles and if they fit into the Highway project of some other subcategory of Transport. None that I have seen are under any sort of transport category, but it seems they should fit somewhere. Tell me what you guys think. Polypmaster 04:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd think that they should be in the highway project for the area, as well as the larger project for the area (since they don't only deal with highways). -- NE2 05:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I've just created an experimental new format for UK A-road articles at A1 road (London), with individual sections on each stretch of road, instead of either a single generic article about the entire road, or multiple free-standing stubs about each section. I'd be grateful if anyone with an interest would take a look and offer suggestions as to what they think of this as an article format and whether they think it would be useful for other similar roads that change their character repeatedly along their length — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Is there any interest in creating a road/highway version of navigation map components such as the ones used for railways (as seen on Channel Tunnel Rail Link) and waterways (as see on Kennet and Avon Canal)? The intention would be to show towns, locations and junctions along the route of a highway in a graphical manner. -- Chuq (talk) 04:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Midland Highway, Tasmania | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Here's an example which I did using the railway symbols. Obviously there will be many changes which will need to be made to accommodate roads, such as different junction types. Seeing as some additional symbols will need to be created, I think using a different colour would be good (e.g. dark grey) -- Chuq (talk) 09:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
A new Internet Relay Chat channel called #wikipedia-en-roads has been opened! This channel is the main discussion channel for all of the roads WikiProjects and road/highway related topics. Small discussions as well as large meetings are held here. Logging is only permitted when a large meeting occurs, which will be logged in the subpage listed below. Come and join us! master son T - C 00:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I just began a discussion on parentage and descendants at Wikiproject Civil Engineering which may be of interest to editors within this Wikiproject. I would be very interested to hear your comments, but to keep the discussion in one place I ask that you please post comments within the aforementioned discussion. Thanks! -- Bossi ( talk • gallery • contrib) 00:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Please note the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Linear features, and the examples given there. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 11:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Please see the discussion at Portal talk:U.S. Roads. -- NE2 23:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Please read and comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (exit lists)#Proposals for clarifications. -- NE2 05:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Would this article be a candidate to be a part of this project? Solarapex 05:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Id like to suggest that a UK Roads WikiProject be set up as an expansion of the current motorways wikproject and similar to US roads WikiProject. This would help have a uniform articles through out the UK road systems and also a point for people to combine there efforts and consensus to more easily achieved. For the time being i would like to see what support there is for this before making an official proposal? Seddon69 22:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
"Decommissioned" is a neologism when applied to roads. The examples at Talk:Decommissioned highway, [3], and [4] show that people will not interpret the term, which is an existing word in other contexts, correctly. (Essentially it's being used to say that a designation no longer exists; it may have been closed, given to the local government, or simply renumbered.)
I started changing to various other terms, mainly "deleted". Apparently that's not clear either, and I guess I understand that.
So what should we use? Should we make a full list of all articles that use "decommissioned" and handle each separately? What should be used in the infobox (for example, on U.S. Route 66)? Where should decommissioned highway be moved?
Please discuss. -- NE2 23:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I have proposed a change to the Road Infobox, I will repost it here as well.
== Deleting Highways ==
There was a recent kerfluffle about whether or not a highway can be decommissioned, or deleted, or whatnot. I would propose something along the lines of the following:
Replace it with:
|
vıdıoman ( talk • contribs) 23:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I feel that all the terms proposed have been more confusing or wordier than the original, and any confusion about decommission can be cleared up by simply including a link to the page that explains it: e.g. Route four was decommissioned in 1924.. — Scott5114 ↗ 23:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I challenge anyone to find any reliable sources for decommissioned highway, following WP:NEO. Unless that happens, we cannot use the term. -- NE2 00:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
A source for "Formerly X" - [5] vıdıoman ( talk • contribs) 00:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that nobody really talks about decommissionings except for roadgeeks and DOTs, and the DOTs have no consensus among each other for what to call it. The roadgeeks call it decommission usually, and yes, roadgeek sites aren't reliable sources, but this is one situation where WP:NEO should go out the window, at least in my opinion, because there's no other term that unambiguously satisfies the use of decommission and is reliable itself. I don't think we can't link to decommissioned highway just because it has no sources.— Scott5114 ↗ 00:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
All use decommission in reference to US 66. Thanks to User:W.marsh for providing the Google News search link. — Scott5114 ↗ 01:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
A note from the peanut gallery: I am a U.S. English speaker, not a "road geek", and I think "decommissioned" is a perfectly fine word to be using here. (I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.)
To me, "decommission" means "lose a formal status" (e.g. a commission) and, depending on circumstances, may mean that the decommissioned entity remains in full use (albeit without the former designation), remains in partial use, is removed from use but still exists (perhaps "mothballed"), or is dismantled/demolished.
If someone told me that a numbered highway had been "decommissioned", I'd understand that it had lost its designation. I might wonder whether it was still in use or had been demolished, but I'd probably guess that it was still in use, because I would imagine that the speaker would have said "demolished" or "removed" otherwise. — Steve Summit ( talk) 02:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
While I have not seen any official usage by DOTs of "decommissioned", it does appear that the word is in somewhat common use in certains books about U.S. highways, as can be seen in many of the hits in Google Books. This seems to be an acceptable, succint, and not entirely uncommon usage of the word without having to worry about variations across state DOTs. This is somewhat like using "freeway" as an all-encompasisng word for "highways with full control of access and no cross traffic". -- Polaron | Talk 02:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
“ | U.S. Route 66 was decommissioned piecemeal as Interstate construction progressed[...] On January 17, 1977, at the other end of the highway, Route 66 was decommissioned from the Loop in downtown Chicago to Joplin, Missouri. | ” |
— The Roads that Built America by Dan McNichol, p. 77 |
— Scott5114 ↗ 03:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I've put together a (hopefully) full list of pages that contain or contained the term at User:NE2/decommissioned; this includes the ones I changed to deleted or something else. Note that this also includes ones which simply have a blank "decommissioned=" in the infobox code. Hopefully we can clarify the language in each of these, not with decommissioned or deleted, but with a better wording. -- NE2 16:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Regardless, the word 'decommissioned' was used. They understood what it meant, and one would assume readers would as well. vıdıoman ( talk • contribs) 02:59, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
“ | U.S. Highway 91 has since been decommissioned in Nevada. | ” |
— American Trails Revisited by Lyn R. Wilkerson |
[Indent reset] I think this is a circumstance where we can use common sense and Ignore WP:NEO in this case.
2. Don't follow written instructions mindlessly, but rather, consider how the encyclopedia is improved or damaged by each edit. --From WP:WIARM
-- Son 16:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Here's an interesting find: [6] uses "Renamed or decommissioned", as if a route is only decommissioned when it ceases to be state-maintained. -- NE2 09:45, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
In articles about specific state routes, we should as much as possible use the term that state's DOT uses, if it is not too wordy. For generic cases, as well as in the infobox, a suitable word to use might be "abolished", which is the opposite of "established". For people who might deem that this too is a neologism, another suggestion is to use "eliminated", which is the term that is used by AASHTO in their U.S. Route Numbering Electronic Application Form. -- Polaron | Talk 19:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Polaron's suggestion might only apply to American routes. Canada does not have federal level highways and eliminated is never used to describe highways (or anything related to physical infrastructure that I know of) in Canada. Additionally, our transportation ministries don't have a term for this at all. NE2's idea would make more sense, and I don't think being wordy is a problem as long as it is kept down to 10 words or less. A more wordy term would actually be better as it would explain what actually happened, as opposed to a blanket term which could mane one of many things. vıdıoman ( talk • contribs) 20:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Can we come to an agreement that we can clarify language - not replace "decommissioned" with "deleted", which I was wrong to do, but actually make it clearer exactly what happened - was the number replaced with another? Was it removed from a road that already had another number? Was it turned back to the county? -- NE2 00:11, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
What would we use for the infobox? --
Holderca1 01:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
By the way, on a somewhat related note, I've compiled User:NE2/former, a list of highway articles that use the "decommissioned" or "deleted" parameter, and where they could be merged. Some merges are obvious ( Texas State Highway Loop 420/ U.S. Route 83 Business (Laredo, Texas)/ Interstate 35 Business (Laredo, Texas)), some less so. -- NE2 03:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Can I do it now? Nobody's said anything for a while, and the RFC is much more balanced. -- NE2 20:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no consensus here for the removal of decommissioned. -- Rschen7754 ( T C) 05:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Standard operating procedure for when no consensus is reached is to default to the status quo. — Scott5114 ↗ 20:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
(reset)Just like a military officer can lose his commission, come back as a civilian doing the same job and getting paid by the federal government. -- Holderca1 23:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
If there is "no consensus needed" to fix "neologisms" as you claim, then why did you start this discussion? -- Rschen7754 ( T C) 00:04, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay, how about this definition of decommission as it applies to highways: has had its authorization as a federal or state highway removed. Using this definition of decommission, "to revoke the commission of." To clarify what commission is, "the state of being authorized to perform certain duties or tasks." The authorized part shouldn't be too hard for people to grasp since it takes some type of authorization to give a highway a designation. Then we get to "to perform certain duties or tasks," well I think that is pretty obvious. The strip of asphalt is being authorized to be a state highway, interstate, etc... to provide a means for people to drive from one place to another. An interstate has different duties than a state highway does. Hopefully this can put an end to this, but I highly doubt it. -- Holderca1 13:59, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I've skimmed through the above "Decommissioned" discussion section, and the discussion seemed to be getting less constructive as it went on, so I'd like to restart the discussion here. From my quick reading, it appears the dispute seems to be about the use of words like "Decommissioned" when referring to a highway's status change. I have some thoughts, but first I'd like to make sure everybody is on the same page here. To help get everything organized, I'd like for each involved user to crate a subsection here briefly stating their view of the dispute, and thoughts on the issue. If you see another user's section that you agree with, feel free to just indicate your agreement in their section, as opposed to creating another section that says the same thing, other than that, please don't reply to other users' sections. I hope we can have a calm, orderly discussion and get this sorted out soon. Mr. Z-man 19:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I hope you don't mind, I have made bold an important sentence that has not been followed by other contributors. vıdıoman ( talk • contribs) 00:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Woot. Some sort of order!
The argument seems to be that decommissioned is made-up term (in semi-wide usage in the roadgeek community) that refers to a highway that once was a certain route number, but is no longer. The physical highway may or may not still exist; whether or not it does isn't addressed by the term "decommissioned".
State highway departments don't keep track of former/decommissioned state routes, so the argument is over something that technically doesn't exist according to any given authority. I'd keep "decommissioned" because in my humble opinion, decommissioned has become notable in itself, particularly w/ reference to U.S. 66. "Former" is acceptable (an exit on I-88 (IL) is marked as "Former Illinois 2", but honestly, can you see "Decommissioned Illinois 2" on a sign?). "Old" is also acceptable, if not... generic. But many cities have signage similar to "Old Seward Highway", "Old US. 76", so it wouldn't be entirely made-up. — Rob ( talk) 21:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
My argument is very simple: "To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term—not books and papers that use the term." No reliable sources that define decommission as it applies to highways have been found. The general dictionary definition is to "remove from service" or "shut down", something that does not generally describe a decommissioned highway.
For clarification, the following cases are all being called "decommissioning":
Without a definition, we cannot do this, except in the case of SR 480, where it is being shut down. We should use clearer language, even if it is slightly longer, for instance:
We don't need to use decommissioned, and we shouldn't, because it will not be understood by those who have not seen it before. -- NE2 22:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
There's also no reason at all for reversions like [9] that not only muddle the wording but also remove information and restore typos. -- NE2 23:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Decommission generally means 'stricken from the highway system', be that the state highway system, the U.S. route system, or occasionally, the Interstate System. There are nuances, of course, and that seems to be the hangup here: The term does not specify what happens afterward, but generally it either becomes part of another route or downgraded to a lower system (US 66→SH 66, SH 126→CR 240, etc.) Decommission usually refers to the designation as a whole (U.S. 66 was decommissioned in 1985) but occasionally refers to a segment of the route (In 1984, Arizona also saw its final stretch of highway decommissioned with the completion of Interstate 40 just north of Williams, Arizona.)
Whether this matches with dictionary definition of decommission seems to be a matter of opinion.
Okay, the problem seems to be that "decommissioned" might be being used in so many situations that it might be confusing. On the other hand, decommissioned is somewhat common usage and there are many alternatives, each with varying meanings, histories, and amount of usage. Perhaps some sort of criteria should be established for when different terms should be used? Based on the definition of the word, what actually happened, what sources say, what the common usage is, etc. Mr. Z-man 22:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I think there are many issues here (aside from NE2's conduct, but that's mostly fallen by the wayside since the RfC). The first is whether decommission is a neologism. This should probably be taken care of first, because if it is, then others are moot. Discussion seems to trend towards saying that it's probably not, with NE2 and (maybe?) O dissenting.
Second, there's the issue of what decommissioned means. I have attempted to lay this out above, and it seems that all parties agree as to what the core definition is. Where the disagreement starts is whether it is unclear or not. My personal belief is that the word can still be used for the act of the route being stricken, and then what happens to the roadbed be handled separately; emphasis should be placed on the removal of the designation when using the term decommission.
Another objection to removing the word is that no good alternatives exist to replace it. Deleted has come across to many users (especially those outside the project) as novel or bizarre; most other alternatives have been rejected as being wordy. Indeed, most of us feel that without decommissioned we'll have to resort to clumsier prose.
Perhaps the best thing to do is limit the scope of decommissioned to fewer situations than it is applied to now. When a highway is completely and totally changed from one number to another (i.e. when OK-41 became OK-152) we should absolutely use renumber. OK-41 didn't die, it just had a name change. For when one segment is removed, which tends to happen at the ends, we have truncated - except in instances when a chunk is taken out of the middle, where decommissioned probably remains the best choice. That leaves only the other instance of when decommissioned is used: to signify the entire route was stricken from the system, and I believe this is the definition that the word is best used for. — Scott5114 ↗ 00:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Interesting fact of the moment - Illinois calls it "abandoned". See (605 ILCS 5/4‑206) here. Now wouldn't that terminology be confusing? — Rob ( talk) 17:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)