User talk:Viator/archive1304

1922 Road Lists and Welsh names

Hi,

I've taken the policy that any place names in historical documents (such as the 1922 Road Lists) are listed verbatim as they were originally printed - so you will find "Llanelly", "Portmadoc" and "Conway". And, for that matter, Chipping Barnet. --Ritchie333 16:54, 11 September 2011 (BST)

Cheers, that's fair enough. As it happens, I'd just spent the last few minutes going through the lists and confirming for myself that, on the evidence, that was the policy (got sidetracked looking at other roads, though, and hadn't yet returned to the 1922 page). Conway -> Conwy is just an automatic reaction with me, and -- as I said -- I doubted it as soon as I'd done it (noticing "Llanelly" further down)! I was really only editing that entry because of the "Bettws-y-Coed-Conway" typo (missing spaces), and to add the missing road from the Notes column.

While I've got you're attention, though (assuming that you are the prime mover of the 1922 lists), I've been meaning to ask for a long time: Are these itineraries OCR from an original document or were they simply manually entered on the basis of the contemporary maps? The reason for my question is that they contain a fair number of what look like typos (e.g. "Ystalfera" in Wales and "Wasperrton" in England). I take it that it's OK to correct that kind of thing? -- Viator 17:17, 11 September 2011 (BST)

I typed them in by hand in an afternoon, and any mistakes probably are mistakes - feel free to correct them! --Ritchie333 20:02, 11 September 2011 (BST)

meets in Routebox

I'm not sure if there are any proper guidelines on this, but I have always added meets to all routes, defunct or not, to give as much information as possible. I appreciate that if a road is defunct, it no longer technically meets anything, but equally it no longer technically has a start or end, on the other hand the actual tarmac (normally) still exists, meeting other routes along the way.

Perhaps someone else will clarify this? Rileyrob 17:57, 4 October 2011 (BST)

Yes, the standard has previously been to treat "meets" as adding roads as if it all exists today to give people the option of jumping across between them all - hence why I put them in.

Whilst we're on the subject of removing information, is there any reason why you've removed the "outline" too? I put them in no matter what the status is, as we tend to add more lines in when we find out more about the road, and also because I like the way it "ends" the routebox nicely! Steven 18:13, 4 October 2011 (BST)

Because if we interpret "meets" to mean "met" as well as "meets" then a large number of the entries under that heading are going to become so unwieldy as unlikely to remain of much practical use -- especially when the inclusion of met routes entails the disambiguation of those routes too.

I am to some extent attempting to counter what I view as infobox bloat. In the absence of a thoroughgoing review of what we mean by many of these "time-sensitive" headings, I feel that changes-over-time are far better dealt with in the text section of articles. I have even seen presented in infoboxes information relating to roads that were never built (including the reporting of "what is actually shown" on signs that were never erected!) -- Viator 18:47, 4 October 2011 (BST)

Sorry, but I completely disagree for two really significant reasons :
1) For somebody casually looking for information, the infobox is definitely the place for it. To give you a casual example, today I was looking for a defunct road with no co-ordinates given, so I could add a map to it. Because the routebox said what roads it connected to, I could easily use that as a pinpoint to find it on an appropriate historic map and put the link in. If it had been embedded in the description, it would be harder for me to mentally pick it out.
2) The SABRE Maps AJAX API picks up stuff in the routebox, and if you put it in the text, it'll miss it. For example, the grid references in the routebox are used to put the map in roughly the right place to display all of a road and not much else. --Ritchie333 19:10, 4 October 2011 (BST)

Hi, Ritchie. There's nothing whatsoever wrong with GRs in routeboxes -- that's precisely why I've spent so many hours checking so very many of them! -- nor, indeed, with any other kind of information ...just so long as it's as accurate as we can make it and, above all, unambiguous. My complaint about "infobox bloat" is that too often stuff appears (to me at least) to gets bunged into a multiplicity of boxes on article pages just because it's "transclusionally" possible to perform such an action, without always, it seems to me, a lot of thought about how the results will read on the page.

To write "meets" when one means "met" is an abuse of language (or, at the very least, a display of what looks perilously like an "I-know-what-mean-so-who-cares-about-anyone-else?" attitude. I could happily live with a template adjustment that had the result of changing "meets" to "met" in the case of defunct route denominations, plus the open explanation, somewhere or other in our documentation, that the routes so mentioned are those now met by the defunct route. Otherwise, as I say, we'll be up all night looking at every variation and permutation of routes-once-met.

I'm glad you found a "meets" (="meets"/="met"?) entry helpful when you were seeking to add a map to a defunct-denomination entry, but I would say that "you were lucky". There are many cases where all the designations formerly attributed to routes in an area have changed, so that a lot of all-round-the-houses searching is still necessary (often entailing far more work than just looking directly at old maps: not just one's own collections and "Old Maps" site but, of course, now the hugely useful Sabre Maps site).

Having been accused more than once over the years of "UnSabristic Activities", I know that it's perhaps unlikely I'll be believed -- but I am only trying to make things clearer! -- Viator 20:12, 4 October 2011 (BST)

What are "Unsabristic activities" and who has accused you of them? I think that's referring to the fact you tend to waffle a bit rather than summarise things in short sentences, which means I'm not entirely sure what your point is. However, I think it's that you've come to a Routebox, seen 5 - 10 blank / unused fields and wondered what they're doing there. In that case, somebody (possibly a program) has just copy and pasted them from elsewhere, so just get rid of them. But keep the grid refs, the meets, the former numbers, the "now part of" and the counties - if you know them. --Ritchie333 20:48, 4 October 2011 (BST)

PS : Oh, just to clarify - the reason I tend to reply like this is because you usually do have something useful to say!

>"Editing conflict" while I was in the middle of trying to post the following. But thanks for your PS<

In reply to your question, I have, amongst other things, been named as a "troll" in the forums. I recall the accusation rather than the accuser (whose name is not worth remembering in any case).

I do think, however, that you must be very unfamiliar with my work in the Wiki, Ritchie, if you think that I've been in the habit of deleting any entries in the "grid refs, meets [when they mean meets], former numbers, 'now part of' [or] counties" fields. Quite the contrary! I've checked, corrected, and added (ever since the days of the Roaders' Digest) huge numbers of grid references, meets, and the like. I will admit to deleting the occasional nonsense like "former number(s)" and "now part of" pointing to the same route number. It's theoretically possible, of course, that such a circumstance could arise, but in every case I've come across it's been someone accidentally failing to get their thoughts in step with their command of the language. -- Viator 21:24, 4 October 2011 (BST)

I came across such a scenario this afternoon actually - the A983 / B936, and it's not the only one - certain councils (Devon CC) seem to be quite prone to upgrading and downgrading roads every now and again. --Ritchie333 23:39, 4 October 2011 (BST)

Looks like I've opened a huge can of worms here, sorry about that. To clarify, on defunct routes when I am adding 'meets', I generally only list a few of the most pertinent numbers, not a full list like I would for an active route. This would normally comprise the roads at either end, giving their current numbers and those when the defunct route was active if different. Having said that, of course, the majority of defunct routes that I have edited (I've just been looking for some) seem to be either very short (A922 (Perth)) or so remote (A862_(Inverness_-_Fort_Augustus)) that my ideal rule has not always been applied!

I do agree that perhaps a 'met' term to be used in place of 'meets' would be more appropriate, but working with what we have, I feel strongly that meets should be used, despite its grammatic inaccuracies, until someone has time to remedy the situation. Rileyrob 21:37, 4 October 2011 (BST)

Don't worry, Rob: I think it was probably me that first reached for the can opener! I've been grinding my teeth and "learning to live with" the fact that "meets" doesn't always mean "meets" on the Sabre Wiki for a long time now. Just tonight I thought I'd make an actual, and explicitly announced, change to one article in that area -- and lo! Yes, the can had indeed contained lots of wriggly creatures, now free. But then, that being the case, I do think that such worms are "better out than in". And -- as a bonus -- it proved that although some people neglect to complete their edit summaries, others do indeed read them. :-) -- Viator 22:09, 4 October 2011 (BST)

Feel free with the can of worms issues relating to grammar pedantry, if the attitude is like the above: simply raising the issue, and you don't mind the removal of data being reverted. Provided that you explain why you've done it, of course. Si404 00:32, 5 October 2011 (BST)

I tend to work in exactly the same was as Rob - it's all about relevancy to me. In other words, defunct roads get the end points and something in the middle; the A1 doesn't get every B road it meets and so on. There's a happy medium between [i]nothing[/i] and [i]everything[/i], and for defunct 1922 routes I tend to "meets" the 1922 numbers - which gives Ritchie the information that he's looking for too in order to place roads. Whilst I can change the routebox without to much difficulty, I'm not sure "meets/met" is the correct phrase to use. Perhaps someone would like to come up with a label that works better? Steven 07:34, 5 October 2011 (BST)

>> I'm not sure "meets/met" is the correct phrase to use <<

As for me, I'm quite sure that it's NOT! It would be feasible, though, to add

|met =

to the Routebox template as an optional parameter -- to be used, in the case of defunct designations, in place of

|meets =

I suggest that it would be best set up so as to allow dating in a similar fashion to the way in which such parameters work in many Wikipedia infoboxes: see for example

|population = 4759

|population date = 1999

in this article, so that you could have, say,

Met (in 1930)

-- Viator 21:46, 6 October 2011 (BST)

OK, can we carry on filling in "meets" for now, and I'll try to do something clever with the infobox. Steven 08:40, 7 October 2011 (BST)

Please can everyone who has commented test this! I've made a change to the routebox, but I've only left it live on A449 Sandbox for now, until we agree that this is A Good Thing. I've basically changed the code so that if a route is defunct, then the label "Meets" gets changed to "Met". Therefore Kevin's point about the poor English should be solved, and no-one has to move anything around. I've also added another parameter "metyear", which if used adds that text to the "Met" label, so as an example:

| meets   = A1, A2, A3
| metyear = 1922

will give us something like "Met (1922): A1, A2, A3"

If we all agree that this works, and is what we want, I'll make the change "live" over the weekend some time. Steven 09:05, 7 October 2011 (BST)

It worked fine when I tested it. Thank you, Steven. Just on a "graphic design" note, would it be possible to unbold the year display and perhaps make it smaller, like this? --

Met (1929)

P.S. I hope you won't think this is a case of "give an inch and they'll ask for a mile" but -- long-term -- I think it would be nice to see all parameter captions left-aligned and the trailing colons (which are not always consistently applied in any case) eliminated. -- Viator 09:28, 7 October 2011 (BST)

Looks fine to me - go and fill up that jobqueue! ;-) --Ritchie333 09:41, 7 October 2011 (BST)

Well, it's not quite finished, as I need to do the same thing for former motorways! Steven 10:58, 7 October 2011 (BST)

OK, I've added "former motorway" to the test, so they should show "Met:" as well now, and make the date bit smaller. Test away! Steven 11:20, 7 October 2011 (BST)

---

Looking forward to seeing that Meets turn into Met (and to the year appearing) as soon as the changes "go live"! -- Viator 19:47, 8 October 2011 (BST)

---

It worked. Many thanks! -- Viator 09:23, 9 October 2011 (BST)

Hope you don't mind but now you've seen it working I've removed the routeboxes from this page, as they were causing your userpage to be added to non-relevant categories and therefore it was showing up in places it shouldn't! Steven 11:57, 9 October 2011 (BST)

B5354

You recently wrote : "This number does not appear ever to have been used". From my research, I would suggest it would have been allocated to a road around 1925-26, based on the patterns of other B roads allocated around this time (the 1932 Ten Mile Map has some other B535x roads on it). However, without the appropriate MOT map of the area, we'll probably not find exactly where. Perhaps it's a 300 yard link road in Northampton? --Ritchie333 11:04, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I only said "appear"... :-) My main point, in what I wrote, is that the article on the Whitchurch (Salop) B5354 ought really to disappear. As to the existence, ever, of a B5354, I'm quite prepared to have been confounded by appearances, and would welcome all continued investigations. -- Viator 00:56, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

B490/1

You recently amended the above. It appears that the info for the A 491 appears on the A490 page. Obviously they do need to be altered. Can you update please --User:bob@romiley1/Bob 14:36,12 April 2013(BST)

Yes: my blunder! Thanks for spotting that and drawing it to my attention, Bob. I've now moved the B491 text to the right place and restored the B490 page to its previous state pending update, which I'm about to work on immediately. -- Viator 14:10, 13 April 2013 (BST)

Sorry but it seems to have been done again. Your latest update to the B490 still shows B491--[[User:bob@romiley1/Bob 15:47,13 April 2013(BST)

Just my butterfingers in the first sentence this time -- the right text description is with the right article this time (I hope!) -- but thanks again for pointing it out. -- Viator 21:10, 13 April 2013 (BST)