User talk:Si404

For discussions from before September 2011, see User talk:Si404/archive Sep11 For discussions from before April 1st 2014, see User talk:Si404/archive Mar14

Splitting HAs and destinations

Hi Simon - good call on that, BTW - I was going to suggest something similar. Just as a request - could you add dab boxes to the HA pages, and make the "Authority" tag in the place page a link please? Ta! EDIT: Oh yes, we need to just check that the "borders" on the neighbouring HAs link to the new HA pages, and that the County pages also point to the new HAs where applicable. Steven (talk) 08:00, 15 May 2014 (BST)

I considered that, as you won't end up there accidentally, you don't need a dab on the HA page, though happy to add one to the pages I've not done yet (most of them). The correct links on pages I'm not currently editing (Counties, other HAs, roads, crossings, junctions...) will get done when the page moves to its proper location (like Kevin, I don't like the Council label). Rather than doing a depth-first doing it, I'm doing a to do list and sweeping through each of them in order rather than doing it all in one go.

1. Add infoboxes and navbox with template to every HA page - done
2. Make HA pages when they redirect to a destination and add infobox and navbox - doing
3. Find the right names for authority and replace every link to the correct page - to come (might include categories for each HA, to make that easier)
4. Flesh out by adding lists of roads and such like (and dab to similarly named articles - eg Transport for Buckinghamshire would have a dab to the county page at Buckinghamshire (currently still Buckinghamshire (County) as I don't want to change all that categorisation yet!)
5. Do 1, 3 and 4 for counties, many of which will be able to lose the (County) bit on their pages as the Highway Authority is called 'x County Council' or whatever. dab, of course!

PS - one thing that would be helpful is if TfL_roads worked in Template:Highway Authority. I believe I've done it correctly in the sandbox.

PPS - also useful would be OSM traces of the borders which can be imported from the lists on OSM Wiki: London England (middle column) Wales - that way the map isn't just "somewhere around here".

Works for me! I've sorted the "TfL_roads" parameter - I accidentally missed it out. On the same sort of topic, adding "non_primary_destinations" to counties will work eventually, once I move the test to live, which I'll probably do soon as "Highway Authority" seems to work well.

I've also asked Ritchie about getting boundaries out of OSM, and got a "sorry, busy at the moment" response, which is fair enough. I suspect now you've found the authority boundaries, it might make it a bit easier to do. I suspect that we should be able to convert the County boundaries from GIS to OSM fairly easily, though I'd need to check that out. (And that middle column doesn't work for Berkshire or the former Met Counties, we need the right hand one for them). Steven (talk) 12:57, 15 May 2014 (BST)

With Counties, there's a layer on SABRE Maps Si404 (talk) 14:08, 15 May 2014 (BST)

The border so strange that the ABC doesn't fully recognise it!

Oh yeah. I'd forgotten about that! One thing that does occur to me with a rename of the Highway Authority pages, is that it requires knowledge of the full name of the authority, which isn't obvious. In RoI, it's simple - they're pretty much all "X County Council" or "X City Council", whilst in GB we have "X Borough Council", "X City Council", "X County Council", "X County Borough Council", "City and County of X Council" (probably!), "X Council", "X Metropolitan Borough Council", "London Borough of X" and even "City of X Metropolitan Borough Council" (IIRC, Bradford is styled this way); as well as one or two others I've forgotten - "Transport for Buckinghamshire" is just completely non-intuitive but technically correct. Are we going to raise the bar to entry for creating or changing pages just too much? Whilst I'm not that keen on "X Council", it does have the major advantage of being consistent, and hence pretty simple to pick up. Steven (talk) 14:31, 15 May 2014 (BST)

I know what you mean, but that's what redirects are for, surely? "X Council" will still exist, and will point to the right page (I should point out that all Highway Authorities currently have this redirect, even if content on West Sussex rather than West Sussex Council). OK, categories for authorities will be unintuative with this. Perhaps I'll bring it up on the forums before beginning phase 3. Si404 (talk) 14:45, 15 May 2014 (BST)

Yeah, perhaps best to get some more steer. Like I say, I agree with you (and I hate the (County) suffix equally), but I worry about making things too complicated. Do we have many categories for authorities now?

On a separate-but-related note, there's also a "near_npd" tag ready for the new Primary Destinations and Places infobox, for "nearby Non-Primary Destinations", meant to be used like "near", but for non-PDs, obviously. Steven (talk) 15:02, 15 May 2014 (BST)

We don't have any real Authority categories currently - the odd picture, C road list, whatever, but almost all navboxs have been blank, with no links. TfL_roads field in county would be good (though do we need such 'trunk road' cats for counties?)

On a seperate, but related note - how do you like Monmouthshire (County)'s infobox map? I'd love that for Authorities, though the traces will be OK, I guess. Si404 (talk) 19:14, 15 May 2014 (BST)

OK, I've added TfL support in the new County infobox, as well as fixing the documentation on Highway Authority. As for Monmouthshire - I like it! So much easier than me messing about with 5 million OpenData GIS datasets and combining it with the Historic County Boundaries GIS data. Hopefully Ritchie will come back with something like "if you get me the traces and put them somewhere sensible, it'll just magically work" about the boundary traces!

I do need to sort out what on earth we're going to do with the Road Scheme infobox before putting too many more new ones live. I don't really want to make too many changes to the base Infobox template and have it smash the job queue too much. Having said that, I don't think we've found any bugs on Highway Authority, so do you reckon we can go "live" with the new County one? Steven (talk) 21:19, 15 May 2014 (BST)

I reckon the County Template can go live. Si404 (talk) 00:01, 16 May 2014 (BST)

BTW - you can adjust the height of the map by using a "height=" tag. Very useful for those tall counties! (The default is 250) Steven (talk) 11:16, 16 May 2014 (BST)

county_town= tag doesn't work in the county template. I guessed it might be possible to change the size of the map, but was feeling that zoom level 7 isn't so bad. Looking again, it totally is! Si404 (talk) 11:19, 16 May 2014 (BST)

Yeah, county_town hasn't worked for years - Jeni took it out of the old version forever ago. Probably the right choice, I'd have to say as it's usually an administrative centre, and that got changed over the years. It's pretty irrelevant nowadays. The "hidden" tags (as in, not in the documentation) that work on the County Infobox are:

• trace - which I could take out now quite happily seeing as we have a Maps layer that does that job
• lng - which really needs to be in there just because Jeni was inconsistent between lon and lng for longitude, but lon fits in with Mapbox etc so needs to be the standard one.
• height - which you've now discovered!
• gallery - if you really want to force the "gallery" link to go somewhere different. It's a holdover from the old infobox, and I think we can get rid of it cos I don't think it's used anywhere

They all work on Highway Authority too, which I don't think has any extra hidden features. Other than that, everything is in the documentation. Steven (talk) 11:32, 16 May 2014 (BST)

Terminal and Intermediate destinations

Hi Simon,

You've created two new templates for Terminal and Intermediate destinations. What's the difference (other than the categorisations) between them and the PD one? As you've got them, you've lost (or at least aren't using) the "next Terminal Destination" tag that I was sorting out on the new PD template, and if it's possible, it would be so much easier to have one template to maintain instead of several, for the same reason as Crossing/Bridge/Tunnel/Ferry becoming one. Steven (talk) 09:27, 28 May 2014 (BST)

I agree, I was bored and tried sorting it out - Irish destinations are a mess (ID's typically use Place, Places use PD, etc) anyway. The rel1= etc tags that are the main draw of a separate Irish template didn't work well... I didn't know about the next TD tag. For the 'all templates in one' reason, are Place and Airport merging in with PD to create 'Destination'? Si404 (talk) 10:10, 28 May 2014 (BST) PS: I see you saw my joke in Wolverhampton Council ;)

Well, yeah. I need to figure out just how to do the categorisation properly so that when you put "Ireland" in as the country (or "ROI" or whatever it actually is) that it puts stuff in the TD category. Now, AIUI, places can be BOTH TDs and IDs, depending on just where in the route it is, so I'd be tempted to lump everything in one "TDs and IDs" category, and base them both upon the PD template. It might actually end up easier having a single TD template, just to get the "rel" working properly, as I think it might get a bit messy. I'll try to make it a single one though.

As for Airport, I've been looking at it recently, and I don't like it much! I'm thinking seriously of binning off Airport, and making Place and PD support such things as opening dates - though actually they're not all that relevant in roads terms, not like Bridges etc which are very relevant.

Whilst in theory, I could use the same trick on a combined PD/Place template as I'm thinking of using on PD to deal with TDs properly, it's a diminishing returns thing - whilst less templates mean less management and less "what the heck does this one do", if two templates are used heavily, it's actually going to be more of a pain to combine them.

Wow! That lot is really stream-of-consciousness stuff, rather than a coherent answer! Steven (talk) 15:16, 28 May 2014 (BST)

Some sort of yes fields on Template:Destination? eg |PD=yes puts the page into the relevant PD cats, |TD=yes |ID=yes |Airport=yes and some sort of logic where if PD, TD and ID aren't yes, then put it in Non Primary Destinations (and if Airport=no then put it in to Category:Places)? Though as you say, diminishing returns and all that...

TD and ID's cat would be fine for rel (that was my solution, but I could see that it wouldn't work from the A and B destinations in RoI, so not worth doing yet) - I'll have to put back the separate cats that I may have removed when adding the templates.

Don't forget that somewhere can be a TD and either a PD or an ID (I don't think NI has specific PDs for outside the province*, and they only have TDs in the north - Belfast (N1), Derry (N2, N13, N15), Armagh (N12), Enniskillen (N16) and not IDs (which are a Secondary Road thing).

.*Though Dublin (A1, A5, A509), Dundalk (A1), Letterkenny (A2) Monaghan (A3, A5), Sligo (A4), Lifford (A38), Ballyshannon (A46), Donegal (A46) and Cavan (A509) are signed as if PDs (Dublin as if Super) Si404 (talk) 19:42, 28 May 2014 (BST)

I think at long last, Template:Primary Destination sandbox is ready for use. It's on Dublin and Wolverhampton right now, and the Irish stuff all seems to work properly now, dependant on "Type" being primary, terminal or intermediate, and I think I've got rid of all the silliness of things like "Primary Destinations in Republic of Ireland". Can you check it before I put it live? Ta! Steven (talk) 18:31, 18 August 2014 (BST)

Looks good - I assume that it doesn't allow automatically, somewhere to be both a TD and either an ID or PD and that has to be done manually? Also assume that next_npd works as a field? As long as the latter is there, I say put it live Si404 (talk) 20:22, 18 August 2014 (BST)

next_npd? There's near_npd, if that's what you mean? I'm not sure what the difference should be. Steven (talk) 21:00, 18 August 2014 (BST)

M23 J0 to J6

M23 J5 is linking to Wallington Interchange but it's the one near Fareham so there needs to be another Wallington Interchange page. I don't know how to create a disambiguation page.

Just created a dab on the Fareham one - rather than moving it, given its an actual existing junction and more important, that will suffice. Si404 (talk) 15:53, 17 August 2014 (BST)

OK, that's what I was after. I've also been looking at other Ringway stuff and Bushey Interchange would have had connections to the A41 as well. And if you've seen the extreme M1 J5 layout I posted the other day one of the M16 routes would have passed through it. A lot of Ringway stuff has surfaced since Chris last updated CBRD. As interesting as it is I'm still processing the Cardiff Ringways stuff I've been working on the last few months. Then one day I'll finally get round to doing the Worcester Motorways which I showed at the AGM.

Yes, sure, do Cardiff first (looking good I must say). Worcester is just so absurd that it ought to come before refining Ringways stuff. Si404 (talk) 20:26, 18 August 2014 (BST)

Category:Bypassed N roads

Hi, Simon.

Would you object to my moving the category "Bypassed N roads" to "Reclassified former N roads"?

My reasons for wanting to do this are that:

1. the 21 pages currently in this category are not in fact N roads, but R roads
2. "bypassed R roads", if you like, would be more accurate, since in each case it is an N road that does the bypassing
3. however, not all routes reclassified from N to R are the result of bypassing; it would be useful, all the same, to include all "formerly national" R roads in the category

-- hence my proposal for a renaming. What do you think? -- Viator (talk) 12:29, 18 August 2014 (BST)

Sounds great. Si404 (talk) 12:32, 18 August 2014 (BST)

Thanks. As you are the "only-begetter" and life-time guardian of the Category to date, I'll "be bold" and go ahead. -- Viator (talk) 13:33, 18 August 2014 (BST)

Since it doesn't appear to be possible to move a category in the same way as an article (or, at least, no easy way is provided), I've made a new category and shifted everything there manually – but left the old category in existence so as not to destroy its history. -- Viator (talk) 14:30, 18 August 2014 (BST)

HA area pages

Hi Simon,

Be really careful copy and pasting from the HA area pages. They're utterly, utterly rubbish - just check out the fact that Area 9 think that someone else looks after the top end of the M5; the eastern end of the M54; A449 and A5 north of Wolverhampton and they only look after the M50 between junctions 4 and 8....And don't get me started on their TERRIBLE map! Steven (talk) 12:44, 21 August 2014 (BST)

I also spotted that Area 2 covers Wiltshire, but they only cover the A4 up to the county boundary at Bathford. I can't quite believe that the A4 is only trunk for the length of the Batheaston Bypass, or maybe it is! Rileyrob (talk) 12:56, 21 August 2014 (BST)

I fixed some errors, but several slipped through the gaps, obviously. And yes, Rob, for some reason the Batheaston bypass is trunk but the A4 either side isn't. I presume it is a hangover from the A36 link plans... Si404 (talk) 13:03, 21 August 2014 (BST)

Project TR Junctions

Hi Simon,

I've been looking at the work you have been doing for this project and was wondering if there was anyway I could help, mainly with the SW Junctions? - Harry --Crowntown100 (talk) 20:54, 13 September 2014 (BST)

Harry, absolutely! I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to writing descriptions and stuff that would be needed to make articles 2*. I kind of started the project as both a way of weeding out nonsensical junction pages, and then getting the stubs improved. Si404 (talk) 10:05, 14 September 2014 (BST)

Can I just clarify your definition of SW Trunk Roads.

• A30/A303 from Penzance to the M3,
• A38 from Bodmin to M5,
• A35 from A30 to A31,
• A31 from A35 to M27,
• A36 from A4 to M27
• A34 south of the M4
• M5 south of M4,
• M4 between M25 and M48
• M3 south of M25
• M48 J1
• A3 south of M25

Have I missed any? -Harry --Crowntown100 (talk) 13:48, 14 September 2014 (BST)

You've grabbed half of the SE there (Southampton isn't in the SW, let alone Thorpe or Slough), and missed off some of the others. Any trunk roads in areas administered by Gloucestershire Council, South Gloucestershire Council, Bristol Council, Bath and North East Somerset Council, North Somerset Council, Wiltshire Council, Swindon Council, Dorset Council, Bournemouth Council, Poole Council, Devon Council, Torbay Council, Plymouth Council and Cornwall Council would count.

Thus the following count as SW TR junctions: *A31 west of the B3081, A36 west of Plaitford (to end of TR), A4 Batheaston bypass and Avonmouth relief road, A46 south of M4 and M5 to A435, M4 J15-22, M48 J1, A419/A417 route, A40 around Gloucester, M5 J9-31, M50 J2, M32, M49, A303 w of A338, A30 from A303 to A394, A38 from A30 to M5, A35 Honiton - Bere Regis.

But don't feel limited to the SW - if you want to do the M4 in Berks, M3, etc then sure. You don't have to limit yourself to trunk roads either. Si404 (talk) 18:19, 14 September 2014 (BST)

Ahh! Alright then, I wasn't too sure. Thanks for that! - Harry --Crowntown100 (talk) 18:49, 14 September 2014 (BST)

Harry - if you find any in Somerset, Bristol or around that need some input which you don't know to well, feel free to prod me and I'll take a look. Meantime I'll start trawling through the Scottish ones as and when I get time, which may not be as often as I'd like! Rileyrob (talk) 17:52, 15 September 2014 (BST)

Worcester Motorways

Now that these are complete what other unbuilt motorways are there left to do?

They are obviously quite stubby articles (as are many of the other unbuilt motorways' articles*). Nottingham's city network hasn't been articled yet, ditto Telford's network (Nottingham's map is just the city centre too). And there's always the elusive Watford urban motorway (which we're pretty certain is what became the A4008 M1 link road, right?) and possibly more, given the massive GSJs on the North Orbital there.

• London's Ringways could do with some care, if you are looking for something to do. Si404 (talk) 15:30, 24 September 2014 (BST)

PS - there's also the Reading plans that just surfaced on the forum. I wouldn't be surprised if other large county towns have similar.

I've been looking at the Ringway stuff and there doesn't seem to be any articles for Ringway 3. A few more junction layouts for the M1 to M3 section have surfaced and I may make a start on them shortly.

As for Telford, I drew this map [[1]] a few years ago but don't have any information about it as the original map was of a very poor resolution.

The only thing in Watford I have discovered is an Aylesbury Radial which starts at Hunton Bridge and heads south to join Ringway 3 at Pinner.

The M16 article is about Ringway 3, though perhaps using the latter for more than the Bushey-Thurrock route that the former implies makes sense.

Steven, I believe, has researched Telford thoroughly.

The Aylesbury radial isn't the elusive Watford Urban Motorway, but a remnant of the '49 Abercrombie plans. Si404 (talk) 19:14, 26 September 2014 (BST)

Old route traces

Sorry, there was a bug. I created my userspace manually, but the code couldn't create a new userspace if one previously did not exist, so I'm afraid your traces got trashed :-( ... however it should now work. Ritchie333 (talk) 17:34, 14 October 2014 (BST)

Cool beans - I deliberately did short routes so that it wouldn't matter. Any chance we can have some colour choices, eg for tourist/historic routes (I guess Black could work for the Holyhead Road). Si404 (talk) 17:39, 14 October 2014 (BST)

M11 stuff

Regarding the M11 that we've been updating lately I've discovered an additional junction was planned on the section between Angel and Hackney Wick. There's a limited access junction at A107 Cambridge Heath Road.

I'm also sure there's a junction shown on the Lea Valley route where it meets Ringway 4. I'll have to see when I'm on my normal computer tomorrow.

Cool beans. As for Lea Valley route junctions I was guestimating, forgot Ringway 4 as it doesn't appear on the map! Si404 (talk) 00:22, 26 November 2014 (GMT)

Highways Agency

Errr, Simon... The HA doesn't exist any more - it's Highways England. Steven (talk) 22:21, 15 August 2015 (BST)

A40 junctions

Cheers for fixing those up - ran out of battery last night and didn't manage to finish tidying... C2r (talk) 11:32, 14 October 2016 (BST)

• Could you give me a bit of advice? Why sometimes do junctions have category:roadnumber and other times they don't? Is it where the navbox category or junction rel isn't used (Because the navbox category refers to multiple similar routes or similar?) C2r (talk) 10:59, 17 October 2016 (BST)

Having a road in a rel1= field in the Junction Box adds automatically to the category, and - more importantly - having a route in the route list adds automatically to the category. Generally the only road categories you'd add in at the end is some historic route or E Roads. Si404 (talk) 11:39, 17 October 2016 (BST)

I tend to drop it in there sometimes as a "belt and braces" - but as Simon says if a road is listed in the route list, or in one of the "rel" fields, then it should all get added automatically. I've edited the documentation on the RL template to that effect. Steven (talk) 13:51, 17 October 2016 (BST)

Highways Agency

Hey Simon - just a quick reminder that the HA don't exist any more - it's Highways England instead! Steven (talk) 13:44, 20 October 2016 (BST)

Personal attacks

Please don't make personal attacks like you did on Steven's talk page, accusations of vandalism do not help us collaberate. I'm weighing up if I want to put in an official complaint about your attitude or not right now. This isn't Wikipedia, don't treat it as such. Jeni ^(talk) 18:47, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Scottish places

Hi Si, It takes me 10 minutes to walk home, then another 5 to put my tea in the microwave, and I find you've already done most of Argyll! I'll do the text bits tomorrow, I have to sort out my mums carpet tonight... Thank you! Rileyrob (talk) 18:11, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

No problem, I might be able to get all the redlinks on your page turned into stubs tonight, leaving you just correcting errors and writing text. I presume that you wouldn't create a redlink if you weren't able to write something about it. Si404 (talk) 18:20, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I might struggle with a couple, but they are in my opinion more important and relevant than many that I can do, so I feel that they need doing. You'll also notice a scarcity of red links the further I get from home, which is something that hopefully can be addressed as the next stage. Rileyrob (talk) 18:23, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

N52 Dundalk to Ardee

Hi, Simon. I notice that in April 2013 you added to the N52 article the words the section north of Ardee was downgraded in 2012 -- and indeed the Dundalk to Ardee section is missing from the Classification of National Roads Order 2012. However, seeing that there's been no change AFAIK to the directional signage between Dundalk and Ardee and given, especially, the fact that local sources (including Louth County Council) are still referring to this section as being part of the N52, I'm beginning to wonder if the omission from the Order isn't simply a clerical error (they're not unknown in these Orders as reproduced on the web!).

Do you know for certain that the Dundalk to Ardee road is not the N52? And -- even more importantly -- do you know, if it isn't the N52, what its current number is? TIA for any information you may have. -- Viator (talk) 09:28, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

The 'Classification of National Roads Order 2012' is almost certainly not a clerical error. The change wasn't popular but actually happened Louth Councillors concerned by decision that Louth CC, in protest, didn't bother changing the signs or number of the detrunked road (of course, they miss the point that signing it as an R Road is meant to push non-local traffic via the N33 and M1), or even that the decision was undone (though the only change I can find not done in the various 'Classification of National Roads' Orders is this, N19 extension and the making the Dundalk bypass N52 in 2004).

I'm going to say that it reaches Dundalk, but Louth County Council, rather than TTI or whatever it's currently called, are the authority for it north of Ardee. Si404 (talk) 11:06, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that. What a carry-on! (Apart from anything else, failure to change the signs from N to R must have implications for the enforcement of speed restrictions.)

Anyway, after much searching I've finally unearthed this TII map -- http://www.tii.ie/tii-library/Network_Management/Junction%20Layout%20Maps/M1-Junctions.pdf -- which seems to nail the fact that R215 is the new official number of the ex-N52 from Dundalk to Ardee. Oddly enough, the Classification of Regional Roads Order 2012 includes five cross-references to this R215 -- without giving it an entry of its own.

Will amend the Wiki accordingly tomorrow. -- Viator (talk) 02:55, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

That's a good find - I know the area well and have been wondering for a few years what will happen eventually here. I'm surprised that TII haven't changed their signs on the motorway if they really are looking to make this change.... C2r (talk) 09:22, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Irish routeboxes

Dear Simon, please see my post in the Forums! This is much more than a "minor formatting issue": it needlessly clutters the counties box in a way that had previously, and purposefully, been avoided -- Viator (talk) 13:11, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

E-roads

1.

Whilst fully aware that the E-road network numbering system, with its Class A (reference and intermediate) and Class B routes etc., is a complex one, I had thought that the Wiki page "E Roads/List" – since it lists further pages called E Roads/3 digits, E Roads/Even, and E Roads/Odd – necessarily implied that the latter two pages dealt with the other-than-3- (i.e. 2-) digit E-roads. (Note, too, that E Roads/List says nothing about the hierarchical organization of the routes.)

If, however, that isn't the case, and we want the tripartite division to be more than a quick search tool (although there's nothing wrong, in my view, with its being just that), then we need to revise the names of the list pages to something more like (respectively) E Roads/E130+, E Roads/Even E02 to E128, and E Roads/Odd E01 to E129. (And, at the same time, expand each of the article headings in a similar way to that you've now effected at "E Roads/3 digits".)

2.

I question the need to repeat country names in the "Countries traversed" section. That, say, the E40 enters Kazakhstan three times in the course of its run is certainly very much of interest, but the repetition of country names doesn't of itself tell us enough about the itineraries. I'd suggest that a format something like the following (with country codes listed in the general intro to each page) might be more informative:

---

E20
Route: IE Shannon – Limerick – Dublin 〜 UK Liverpool – Manchester – Kingston upon Hull 〜 DK Esbjerg – København – SE Malmö – Helsingborg – Halmstad – Göteborg – Örebro – Stockholm 〜 EE Tallinn – Narva – RU Sankt Peterburg

---

E29
Route: DE Köln – LU Luxembourg – DE Saarbrücken – FR Sarreguemines

---

What do you think?

3.

Incidentally, I can't see the point of removing from the lists such truths as the fact that the E29 is routed via Saarbrücken – or indeed of respelling Lithuania as "Lithaunia". Sorry if that last one was just a typo, but the page history does make the change look deliberate!

Looking forward to continuing the discussion. All the best -- Viator (talk) 06:45, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

1 - yes you are right

2 - that looks good, but isn't the code for the UK 'GB'?

3 - I didn't intend to do that, whoops! Si404 (talk) 10:34, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your understanding, Si.

I'll implement point 1 soon -- along the lines of the (test) intro I've written for E Roads/Odd:
This is a list of north-south A-class (i.e., reference and intermediate) E Roads − that is to say, those with numbers in the range E01 to E129.
(Have yet to "move" the page name, however.)

On point 2, I propose using the two-letter country codes (BE, FR, IE, LU, RU, UK, etc.) as these tend to be much better known these days than the "oval car sticker codes" (B, F, IRL, L, RUS, GB etc.). -- Viator (talk) 18:28, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

On point 2, I was thinking ISO 3166-1 two-letter country codes, rather than the car stickers. I guess you were thinking of the slightly different ccTLDs. Arguably, given the Northern Ireland issue, UK is better than GB - and that is the only real change between the two sets.

Of relevance to E Roads, the following codes would be the relevant ones: AM, AT, AZ, BA, BE, BG, BY, CH, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB(/UK), GE, GR, HR, HU, IE, IT, KG, KZ, LT, LU, LV, MD, ME, MK, NL, NO, PT, RO, RS, RU, SE, SI, SK, TJ, TM, TR, UA, UZ. (AX is sort of served, but only by ferry, AL has routes end at its borders, as do AF, CN, IR, IQ, SY)

I, personally, prefer the 3-letter codes as they mostly read a bit easier as they are more like the country's name (in English, usually), though they are more niche. Keeping the same order that's: ARM, AUT, AZE, BIH, BEL, BGR, BLR, CHE, DEU, DNK, EST, ESP, FIN, FRA, GBR, GEO, GRC, HRV, HUN, IRL, ITA, KGZ, KAZ, LTU, LUX, LVA, MDA, MNE, MKD, NLD, NOR, PRT, ROU, SRB, RUS, SWE, SVN, SVK, TJK, TKM, TUR, UKR, UZB. (ALA, ALB, AFG, CHN, IRN, IRQ, SYR). Si404 (talk) 19:40, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the observations! Am currently working on Sandbox versions of these pages. -- Viator (talk) 08:45, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Just to let you know: I'm still plugging on with this -- and taking the opportunity to recheck everything from a variety of sources (not all of which agree with each other!). Will confine all formatting and content work to my Sandbox pages until everything is finished (hopefully, by the end of this week). -- Viator (talk) 17:43, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Keys to E-road list pages

If the keys include mention of countries that do not feature on the page then readers are going to conclude that the page concerned contains inaccuracies ...or at least this reader is!

It is, to me, one of the mysteries of the workings of the SABRE Wiki why some (whom I'd describe as the over-systematizers) appear to want to negate the hard work which other editors have put in willingly in the interests of accuracy. :( -- Viator (talk) 20:46, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

E-roads (B-class)

Finally found time to finish checking the B-class E-roads page! (Have had a lot of other demands on my time this month -- and more are going to be coming up, with local elections on the horizon -- so I'll probably be reining back on the grands projets now for a while...). Am about to post my version to the Wiki, and hand the baton over to you.

Just thought you might find it useful if I explained one or two of the restraints / 'guiding principles' I used:

• I rechecked every routing from sources in all the languages / countries concerned wherever possible.
• In cases where the reality on the ground differs from 'legal definitions' I've gone for the de facto rather than the de jure version (though I've stuck to the big exception -- for classification purposes -- of listing the E33 as the E33, with a note).
• I've aimed to be consistent in choosing 'local spellings' (i.e. what's normally on the signposts) -- and have observed the romanization conventions used in the (ex-Thomas Cook) European Rail Timetables. In the case of Kazakhstan I've stayed with Russian, since that remains a co-official language and is the one commonly used for 'inter-ethnic communication'.
• With the obvious exception of start- and end-points (plus any intermediate ferry terminals), I've aimed to include all (but only those) places with populations of >10,000 (or, in a few, less populated areas >9,000). In general I've included 'skirted' places if the route passes within circa 5 km of the 'city limits'. In some cases I've quoted a larger, more relevant place beyond the actual start-/end-point where the latter is at a junction 'in the middle of nowhere'.
• I think that's it!

-- Viator (talk) 13:30, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

P.S. Sorry: I forgot to answer your latest points on my Talk page (made on 4 March -- God, a whole fortnight and more has gone by!). Will get back to you there as soon as I can. -- Viator (talk) 13:58, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Tourist Routes

Hi Si, Is there anything that you'd like me to add to the routebox for tourist routes in the next update? - I've seen for example that you've been adding categories manually, e.g. Northern Irish tourist routes, where this would be fairly straightforward to calculate. Let me know, C2r (talk) 15:44, 5 September 2018 (BST)

Can we have a new type - namely 'Forest' - green text on brown and Category:Forest Drives? While you are there, I don't believe we use 'euroroute' any more, and an unclassified option would be nice as it seems silly that class3 roads have something to make them less important, but roads that don't even have that status are treated as if they were non-primary A or B roads.

adding each route into Category: <country> Tourist Routes would be a nice-to-have, though I'm not totally fussed (manual addition to the category is just as easy as filling in the country form to existing routes). As all the countries do them differently, I want to make individual pages to describe how they do it, etc.

Another thing is the cluttering of Category:Tourist Routes with hill passes (while typically scenic, aren't necessarily tourist routes) - could they be their own type, or - better yet - be considered as crossings and use infoboxes? Si404 (talk) 16:18, 5 September 2018 (BST)

PS: type=forest shouldn't require an authority, so having it as an exception to the error category would be good Si404 (talk) 16:51, 5 September 2018 (BST)

We should be able to add something distinctive for forest drives.

What colours had you in mind for unclassified? I don't think we can wash out the class3 grey further or it will be illegible!

Adding hill passes to the infobox sort of makes sense, because in doing so we'll be able to add additional parameters, like max height; I'll have a think about this C2r (talk) 07:40, 6 September 2018 (BST)

Further thoughts - we don't use country at the moment in routeboxes, only infoboxes (presumably because roads can cross country borders) so my first idea isn't that straightforward, although it could be done.

We do have a unclassified choice, which uses #CCCCCC in preference to class3s #999999

I've just looked again, and it's present in the get fields but not in the routebox! I'll add it there too so it can acutally be used C2r (talk) 09:11, 6 September 2018 (BST)

I've added forest colours and updated the infobox for Slieve Gullion Forest Drive to use the sandboxes - we can change the colours again if you'd prefer different hex triplets without impacting the job queue.

I've also removed euroroute

I've added a new parameter nonumcat=true - this suppresses adding the road into a category called "Roads numbered Slieve Gullion Forest Drive".

I've added a new categorisation of simply Category:the pagename

Take a look and let me know what you think C2r (talk) 08:27, 6 September 2018 (BST)

Thanks, that all looks decent.

• Forest drives' colours are currently backwards (should be green on brown, not brown on green). I've been playing around with the colours we already use, and the brown background with the future-primary green for the text looks alright (really we're looking at a mid-dark green and lighter woody brown, but that doesn't matter much. What wikipedia calls 'beaver' in its page on brown, and just regular 'green' looks alright). (though looking at images, it seems the forestry commission doesn't sign things how I thought!)
• nonumcat=true is excellent
• adding pages to their own category automatically is an excellent idea - I'm guessing the navbox issue has been sorted? Certainly it has for places, but for roads? Doesn't seem to be
• I thought I had seen unclassified in get fields - thanks for adding it to actual stuff
• Tourist routes usually have authorities - they normally don't run on private roads (is 'private' in the list of acceptable authorities?) or odd things where a different arm of the state to the usual ones is in charge of maintenance like Forest Drives (also the case with roads in Royal Parks). But I guess that not having the error isn't too much of a problem.
• wrt hill passes - indeed, stuff like max height can be added, max steepness, climb? (max height-min height), etc. And having the grid refs in Infoboxes for that allows longer bridges, tunnels (and ferries, naturally) to use those parameters.

Si404 (talk) 09:22, 6 September 2018 (BST)

I've had a go at changing the forest colours to use 9F8170 and the future primary green text.

The A1 is using the new routebox as well, and I can't see any problems with its navbox, so I assume it's ok

The list of authorities won't accept private or any of the other authority names for the forest drives as they won't validate. All I've done is suppress adding to the category for it not being present, you could still add them (although if using the new format they'll error). You could force them to use the old format, but that's done by the presence of a wiki link (you could link them to a forest drives holding page that covers an explanation of how the authorities work, and pipe them in each article to the name of the authority managing the drive?)

I've still a lot of work to do on infoboxes but yes, that's the idea! C2r (talk) 10:06, 6 September 2018 (BST)