Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways/Archive 1

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From Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways, "Structure":

Disambiguation pages

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}
Courtland 14:09, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Pages listed on VFD

See the project page.

The above article has been nominated for deletion. Uncle G 19:48:30, 2005-08-21 (UTC)

Stubs related to roads

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

US Roads WP

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)

question

What types of highways are considered acceptable? National? State? County?

Adding Mile By Mile External Links

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)

From "my" web site? You are not allowed to add links to your own web site. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 22:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Navigation

My primary idea is to make highway articles as navigable as (and in some cases more navigable than) the highways themselves. The easier for a user to explore a highway system the better. In a really good system, users can enjoy virtual road trips. Continue discussion on the talk page. --Spikey 02:54, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
See the message I posted on your Talk page. Ilyanep 02:59, 28 Jan 2004 (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?

robinp 04:13, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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
1
Launceston - Perth - Campbell Town - Ross - Oatlands - Brighton - Bridgewater
Launceston joins:

Bass Highway 1 (to Devonport)
West Tamar Highway A7 (to Greens Beach)

Tasman Highway A3 (to Hobart via East Coast)

Bridgewater joins:
Brooker Highway 1 (to Hobart)

Lyell Highway A10 (to Queenstown)

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)

  • Green numbers are clear and good. Shields would be fantastic unless one's browser couldn't handle them! :robinp 21:19, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Midland Highway, Tasmania
1
Launceston - Perth - Conara - Campbell Town - Ross - Oatlands - Melton Mowbray - Brighton - Bridgewater
Launceston joins:

Bass Highway 1 (to Devonport)
Tasman Highway A3 (to Hobart via East Coast)
West Tamar Highway A7 (to Greens Beach)
East Tamar Highway A8 (to George Town)

Conara joins:
Esk Highway A4 (to east coast)

Melton Mowbray joins:

Lake Highway A5 (to Deloraine)

Bridgewater joins:
Brooker Highway 1 (to Hobart)

Lyell Highway A10 (to Queenstown)

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)

Interstates

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)

B-class roads and individual motorway slip roads nominated for deletion

The following articles have been nominated for deletion:

See the project page.

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:

See the project page.

Uncle G 12:06:36, 2005-08-11 (UTC)

The following articles have been nominated for deletion:

See the project page.

And the folowing discussion has been begun:

See the project page.

Uncle G 12:14:34, 2005-08-12 (UTC)

Improvement drive

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)

Virginia Secondary Roads

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?

Mark in Historic Triangle Vaoverland 19:20, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

((tl|Project U.S. Roads}}

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)


Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

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)

As far as the U.S., see U.S. Roads, plus maybe a few of the good state articles. Don't know about otherwise, though. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:02, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

TfD plus old category

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 (edit | 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.

--William Allen Simpson 04:52, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Med Cabal

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-03-12 U.S. Roads. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation

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)

Highways... why are they Notable?

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)

Among other reasons:
  • Someone at a Department of Transportation felt the need for a highway was important enough to have it be built and numbered. There are thousands - maybe millions - of roads in any particular state; to be assigned a number, state maintenance, and have shields put up is pretty special.
  • They can serve as geographical reference points. (e.g. Maysville, Oklahoma is located at the junction of State Highway 19 and State Highway 74). Such references are more meaningful to me than Maysville is located at 34°49′3″N, 97°24′37″W (34.817489, -97.410162). I know exactly where SH-74 is; I have no clue where 97°24′37″W is.
  • Someone who uses the road often may be curious about when it was built, destinations further along the route, length of the highway, and so on. Those who are unfamiliar with the road may want to know about the overall "feel" of the road; the sort of terrain, traffic, and so forth.
  • Highways are an important part of local history. There is a particular curve in my town that can be rather difficult to take with oncoming traffic, rain, night, and so forth. Turns out this curve was built the way it is because this was the original intersection of two highways, where both traveled on a bridge across a river. Neither highway passes through the curve anymore, so the reason for its existance would seem puzzling without knowing about the old alignments of the two highways and the now-nonexistant bridge.
  • Some people do enjoy this kind of stuff. They especially like the history of them (reroutings, highways that don't exist anymore, etc.)
  • They're obviously useful, if people are citing them.
Precedent at AFD has been to keep numbered highways. I suggest searching through old V/AFDs to find other reasons why these articles are kept. —Scott5114↗ 10:31, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Some examples of AFD precedent:
There's more if you want to go look. —Scott5114↗ 21:39, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

New Project Template

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)

List of State Highways in Tamilnadu

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)

Highway NorthBarnStar

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)


Project directory

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)

Wikipedia Day Awards

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)

Avoiding the term "multiplex"

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)

I agree. I'd recommend the easier-to-conjugate overlap, and said as much on talk:concurrency (road). --NE2 16:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Question

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)

Tertiary Interstate articles

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 think in time, all articles about Interstates will become long enough to deserve their own article. Thus, something like I recently did with Interstate 295 is appropriate IMO. --SPUI 10:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Still active?

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 didn't know this existed until now; I've definitely been doing stuff that would fall under it. I support this if only to thwart the deletionists. --SPUI 10:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Another possible format

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)

Yet another I've experimented with is at U.S. Highway 9 - this is based on a railroad format I first saw at Northeast Corridor.

Bannered US Highways

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)

State Routes / Highways

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)

For Florida, the terminology is fairly obvious; everything is referred to as State Road XX or SR XX. So the articles are Florida State Road XX; and references in other articles are SR XX. The problem is with other states. We should probably be using the terminology the DOT uses, adding the state name in front of it, and expanding abbreviations like SR. There are some problems with some states though. For example, Maryland uses MD XX. Maryland XX doesn't particularly seem right. Maybe the word Highway should be added in those cases. Or maybe MD XX is good. --SPUI 13:44, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Er, what should I title this

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)

Sister project

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)

Canada Roads

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.Mitchazenia(Its my birthday!!!) 00:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

DOT?

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)

A1 road (London)

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)

Road diagram icons

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)

Excluding junctions, it's a possibility. In North America, it would be difficult (WikiProject U.S. Roads and WikiProject Canada Roads) only because for most routes, such a list could be VERY long. For example, Interstate 10 in Texas has nearly 900 exits (junctions) alone, and would then have over a thousand different things on that map. Highway 401 in Ontario would also have a very long map, as it has a long route, too. Maybe for shorter routes (like local expressways), it would be feasable. At WP:USSR, we have a decent system in place (WP:ELG), and limit what we put in that list. But for other routes around the world, I don't know; I can't speak for them. Those are neat though, and I would look into using it on, say, U.S. state/Canada provincial highways that don't have grade-separated junctions. But what do you have in mind for the road symbols? --MPD T / C 05:32, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
So far as size issues go, maybe the longer the highway is, the larger the road features would have to be to warrant inclusion. For example, in the United States, only intersections with other interstate highways, and only towns/cities over a certain size could be included. The symbols used wouldn't be that different to the railway one, except maybe a different colour - possibly dark grey? The dots would represent towns, instead of stations. But everything else - junctions, tunnels, and bridge crossings would be the same. -- Chuq (talk) 07:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I tried it out with Virginia State Route 7, the experiment can be found at User:MPD01605/Roads/Work. It doesn't look too bad, it's just long and would need weeded out. Now mind you, that's only a 70 mile-long (110km-long) road. I put some thoughts on there, which are basically there should be a way to indicate an interchange (grade-separated junction) better (I used the KRZ4d for that, ABZ for when Business routes split off (at-grade), KRZ for grade-junctions (there is nothing for a T-interchange or T-intersection), something to indicate railroads (if I have a railroad crossing, might as well have an underpass), and the interchanges could go between the two or three colours. Symbols could pretty much stay the same. It'd need some work, but it's not too bad. Definite possibility. It's almost 4 in the morning where I am, and I am tired from decyphering those codes. I'll gladly talk about it later today though. Feel free to write and put ideas directly on that talk page. Cheers, --MPD T / C 08:00, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I remember seeing SPUI's old site (from before he was on Wikipedia) and he had a listing of the different junctions on the highway with a diagram of the interchange type (diamond, cloverleaf, stack, parclo...) Perhaps we could include different junction types in the diagram. —Scott5114↗ 14:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Midland Highway, Tasmania
Legend
 Launceston
2.4km
 (1) Bass Highway exit
4.3km
 Kings Meadows connector
10.7km
 Breadalbane Roundabout
16.6km
 Perth
43.6km
 Epping Forest
55.2km
 (A4) Esk Highway exit
66.4km
 Campbell Town
78.0km
 Ross
93.5km
 Tunbridge
115km
 Oatlands
143km
 (A5) Lake Highway exit
150km
 Kempton
162km
 Bagdad
171km
 Brighton
175km
 (B32) East Derwent Highway exit
175km
 Bridgewater
177km
 (B10) Boyer Road exit
Bridgewater Bridge
178km
 (A10) Lyell Highway exit
continues as (1) Brooker Highway

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)

Now that I'm arawre of this matter, I will halt all work on the Brooker Highway table, however I hope the final design will feature the level of detail expressed on the Brooker Highway table. Also when designing the table for the Brooker Highway article i took examples of US highway tables on Wikipedia.
As for this design, have you ever heard the saying, I like where we're at, i just dont like how we got here?.... I think this applies for me here, Its a cool looking Design, But is the only option available a railway template? also is it possible for the final heading to be the road shield "green" colour used in Tasmania rather than the existing red colour? Regards Wiki ian 11:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Wiki ian, I didn't mean the comment on your talk page as a request to stop work on the tables, just letting you know that I was working on this!
My intention is that if people like the concept, we can fix the colours, layout, icons etc. to suit highways. Green would be good because AFAIK informational road signs are in green internationally. I've posted a comment at Wikipedia talk:Railway line template#Using these icons for roads/highways to check what naming convention would be best for the "new" files which doesn't clash with existing naming. -- Chuq (talk) 13:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Check out User:MPD01605/Roads/Work. That was the one I made about a week ago for a route in the US. After talking it over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_U.S._Roads#Road_diagrams, it doesn't appear that we would be using it too much for our routes, if really at all. I even address the colours issue. But for colours, info road signs are green in most places, but blue (for Motorways) in the UK, some places blue in Canada [2], and blue in parts of Europe. Perhaps all sorts of colours (green, red, blue, yellow, grey) would be good, so that no matter what, you could use what you needed whenever. That would be the best route to take (no pun intended). But since this seems to be dead in the water for US routes, I really don't have much else to say. --MPD T / C 19:30, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
After reading through the talk pages, i have to say i'm impressed by the idea, But if this is a possible design for Australian Highway Diagrams, there must be a way to provide more details about junctions, especially in more built up areas. You could get away with a diagram like this for the Midland Highway, but what about more built up Highways? For someone visiting these pages, who has no idea about the highways, you would think they'd appreciate all the info they could get there hands on.
I visited the Pacific Motorway article recently. I was impressed by the layout and info given (even though its more brief than the Brooker Diagram). Is it possible to merge this level of info into the railway design? Or is this the most detailed this railway diagram is capable of?
One last stupid question, I'm guessing its an American phrase.... Whats does "(no pun intended)" mean? regards Wiki ian 03:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I think if you put too much into the railway design, it could get very cluttered. But go ahead and try; I for the most part won't be using these (if I do, it will be with non-North American routes), so I honestly don't have an opinion what we do with it. There are so many things that could be done with this diagram. But even short routes could be LONG and would be much better served by a junction list like that on the Pacific Motorway article or on Interstate 85 in North Carolina for example. But that's why there should be all sorts of colours for the pieces so that anyone could use anything they want wherever they want.
Perhaps Australia could implement a few of these, and maybe those could be examples of how they work. Conversely, like the Pacific Motorway article, you could incorporate the little icons into the junction list with all that information. You could probably do a lot more there. I just know how it would work for the US/Canada.
"No pun intended" means when you say something that could be a joke (a play on words, perhaps) but isn't meant to be a joke and wasn't a planned joke. Like when I said "That would be the best route to take", I was talking about how we would go about making pieces for these diagrams, but it's kind of a pun because we were talking about route diagrams. Hard to explain...haha. --MPD T / C 04:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes. I've used this template to replace a table of exits at British Columbia provincial highway 17#List of exits. It's concise and just seeing the interchanges differentiates between highway and freeway portions even without icon extensions. Vagary 22:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Try doing that with New Jersey Route 55. V60 干什么？ · 喝掉的酒 · 路 23:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Even more extreme: Interstate 80 in Wyoming. V60 干什么？ · 喝掉的酒 · 路 23:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I did Uinta County: User:Vagary/Interstate 80 in Wyoming. The miles and exit columns could use a better layout. And because symmetrical exists so often connect to different roads, it's clear that highway diagrams would need the icons running down the middle like:
I-80 BUS US 189
So besides doing away with the north/south annotations, diagrams would also add detail about where exits are in relation to communities (eg: is Evanston cut by the I-80?) and crossing routes (eg: the US-189 zigs through I-80). It would also be easy to use different icons for road size (eg: US, Interstate, State, County Road). Vagary 02:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, this takes away from article quality. We have no plans to convert to this in the near future due to WP:ELG and the various guidelines trumping this all. Consensus will not change on that in the near future, since the ELG setup was pretty clean and solid to even start with. (→zelzany - new age roads) 02:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Agreed with Vishwin60. -- JA10 T · C 02:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for mentioning that it wasn't open for discussion before Chuq, MPD01605, and myself wasted our time. Vagary 03:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I suggested in a railway talk page that these templates would be far more useful if they could have collapsible sections. Thus, you could have the major towns, interchanges or intersections with collapsed segments in between. If someone wants to look at somewhere in one of those segments, it can be expanded. This is an example of what can happen if a template is added with every junction in place on a non-collapsible template.
Great idea, I've started work on it: WP:TRAIL#Collapsible Sections. Vagary 06:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

New IRC Channel for Roads of all countries

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 sonT - C 00:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Parents and descendants

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)

Coordinates

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)

Portal:U.S. Roads or North American Roads?

Please see the discussion at Portal talk:U.S. Roads. --NE2 23:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed changes to the exit list guide

Please read and comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (exit lists)#Proposals for clarifications. --NE2 05:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Yungas Road

Would this article be a candidate to be a part of this project? Solarapex 05:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why not. Go ahead and tag it. --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 08:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

UK Roads/UK Transport WikiProject

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)

WikiProject Motorways master sonT - C 02:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I think he knows that, and is proposing an expansion. I don't see why not, but it should probably be discussed there. --NE2 02:58, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah; discussion should occur over there. However, my suggestion would be to create WikiProject UK Roads as an umbrella project over Wikiproject Motorways, as USRD is to IH. --Son 12:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Decommissioned

"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)

It's reeally hard to discuss when you assume the truth of what people are disputing in the first place. -Amarkov moo! 23:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Did you look at the links I gave to examples of people not understanding what was meant by the term? --NE2 23:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Most people don't know what "phosphorylated" means. --Rschen7754 (T C) 23:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
In which case they can look it up. However, in this case, that won't help, since they'll still think it was torn up and closed. --NE2 23:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
But unless we replace "decommissioned" with its definition in every article, there is no other term that accurately describes the thing. Saying "work" may confuse those unfamiliar with its scientific definition, since they will think it means something else. But no other word accurately describes the concept, unless we say "applied force multiplied by net displacement over a given interval" every time. -Amarkov moo! 23:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
And yet that's an accepted term. "Decommissioned" is not an accepted term among highway professionals. "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." --NE2 23:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
In my Sandbox, which you cite to "prove the unusability" of decommissioned, it also proves the unusability of deleted.

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:

  1. Get rid of the term 'decommissioned'

Replace it with:

  1. "Renumbered", for highways which have been renumbered
  2. A field to represent handing the responsibility for the highway to another level of government (In Canada, we use "download" and "upload", or "turn back" if the highway is handed back to a level that was once responsible for it), perhaps a field for a date to represent each transfer of responsibility if necessary
  3. A field/Fields to show dates of realignments
  4. One or two blank fields for region-specific information.

vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 22:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 23:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Let's not make this about decommissioned vs. deleted. There are many options, and deleted is probably not the best. --NE2 23:42, 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)

We shouldn't have that article, however, since there are no reliable sources for the definition. --NE2 23:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
But there are no reliable sources for any other definition, either. I haven't been able to find anything on Ministry of Transportation of Ontario's website about decommissioning, closing, demolishing, deleting, renaming, renumbering, selling, anything about highways. The definition for a highway or highway designation that no longer exists does not exist. Decommissioned seems to make the most sense. The first link you connect to, someone states that the definition of decommission is "switch off", "close", "make unusable"; Well, when Highway 2 no longer exists, the term Highway 2 is unusable. It references nothing.
Also, I should note, MapArt maps refer to decommissioned highways as "Formerly X". Many maps of cities in Southern Ontario feature this. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 00:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
"Former" is a fine term. --NE2 00:02, 22 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)

I have no problem with that. It's clear what's meant when you say that something was "formerly Highway 2". --NE2 00:06, 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)

There's no reason we can't use the terms that the DOTs use. We don't need to use only one. By the way, I'm compiling what various DOTs use on Talk:Decommissioned highway. --NE2 00:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
"We don't need to use only one." What, and increase the ambiguity? I had no idea what deleting a highway meant. I don't think we're going to rectify the 'decommission' dilemma by throwing even more terms into the ring. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 00:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
If we can use terms that make the articles clearer, we should. --NE2 00:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
My two cents: personally, I don't have a problem with the word "decommissioned," at all ... and I think it's much clearer than "delete." But if there's a concern about the term, I'd say that it's because of sentence structure, rather than the term itself. For example, instead of saying "Highway 10 was decommissioned in 1980," you could say "the Highway 10 route number was decommissioned in 1980." That would be eminently clear to all. Pitamakan 00:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Or "the Highway 10 designation was deleted in 1980" - even clearer, since we're specifying that the route number or designation - not the road - was deleted. Decommissioned might be acceptable with that clarification, but it's still a term that's not used in the real world for this concept. --NE2 00:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
With those sentence structures, either term works fine for me. (If the Highway 10 designation was actually being moved to a different alignment from the one being discussed, though, still different phraseology would need to be used.) Pitamakan 01:00, 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)

I saw that; it appears that the term may have originated in the Route 66 "fan community", or that it's "leaked through" due to Route 66 being one of the most notable things the "roadgeek community" deals with. --NE2 01:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
So? Those three newspapers are reliable sources. —Scott5114↗ 01:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
"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." --NE2 01:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Except that nobody but roadgeeks and Route 66 enthusiasts cares about them. If there were newspaper articles about the subject of decommissioned highways I'd be extremely surprised. It's not likely because the average person finds the subject boring. That said, we DO have references for the usage of the term so I'm adding them to the article.—Scott5114↗ 02:45, 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)

Hmmm. Some of that is spillover from the Route 66/roadgeek community. (If you read misc.transport.road, you'll recognize Carl Rogers.) Others do in fact use it to mean closed: "This road is currently decommissioned, and may not be driveable", "The highway was decommissioned in 1953, and the TWIN TUNNELS were plugged with gravel to keep the curious out", "Sooner or later reason will prevail, the road will be decommissioned, and the original trail from Rapid River to the lookout will be reopened", "around to Wohlers Monument (on a decommissioned road) and back via Wohlers Road". It seems that the term is slightly spreading, but is not yet to the point where we can define it reliably. --NE2 03:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Highway decommissioning is rare enough that no single word is likely to perfectly transmit to an arbitrary reader all the relevant nuances of any given decommissioning. So it seems to me that the right thing to do is to continue to use "decommissioned", but to provide the relevant information immediately afterwards:
  • "Route 123 was decommissioned in ____ but is still in use as Baseline Road."
  • "Route 456 was decommissioned in ____ and demolished."
  • "U.S. 99 north of Seattle was decommissioned in ____ and the parts not overlain by the new I-5 were demolished."
  • "U.S. 66 was decommissioned in ____ but the roads along which it ran are still in use, and many portions have received a "Historic Route 66" designation."
—Steve Summit (talk) 03:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Any of those would also work with other words, such as eliminated. We even have a cite regarding the definition of "eliminated from the state highway system", and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials uses the term when a highway - like U.S. Route 66 - stops being a U.S. Highway. See Talk:Decommissioned highway. --NE2 03:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


—Scott5114↗ 03:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

As I said, mainly spillover from the Route 66 community. If something gets used enough in one area, it spreads to coverage of that area in other media. That's the evolution of a neologism. Once it's used enough to be defined in reliable sources, then we can use it. --NE2 04:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
It's already in dictionaries. It just doesn't mention "highway" specifically. —Scott5114↗ 04:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
The definition in dictionaries means that the road was closed - see the quotes I gave above. --NE2 04:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
So then why would you change them to deleted? Most definitions I have seen for decommission is to withdraw from active service. While delete would be to remove from existence. I don't think any of the possible alternatives can state clearly what we mean out of context, all can be interpreted as the road being closed or no longer in existence. On the flip side, the formed date is equally confusing, as it could mean when the road was built(which I would assume most unfamiliar with the subject would assume) or it could mean when the road was designated. --Holderca1 12:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

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)

I think this discussion is ridiculous, and is a complete waste of time. We should be working on articles, not discussing a very minute point of what Wikipedia is truly about. If you really have a problem with using the word decommissioned, why don't you just go ask Jimbo Wales himself and see what he says about it. Sheesh! This is part of the reason why I don't participate heavily on Wikipedia anymore. --Son 17:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
It's a legitimate question, but we're at the point that "decommissioned" is used often enough to be notable (this is, after all, a large group of people that has an accepted definition of the word), so I think it's keepable. Alaska has no decommissioned highways. Illinois does, but the website doesn't reference them, because they're gone. —Rob (talk) 17:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure that we actually have a completely accepted definition, and we definitely don't have one that can be sourced reliably. I will start rephrasing the articles in the list to be clearer to the reader, whether or not he is a roadgeek. --NE2 20:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
"I'm not sure that we actually have a completely accepted definition" – You're one of the few whom do not accept it. However, earlier I did clarify one article, changing:
to
the latter being more clear. Should a highway designation cease to be, I would use "Not currently assigned"; "No longer assigned". However, using these phrases is technically a neologism. So is, for that matter, deleted, at least in Canadian English. As for Texas' "cancelling" of highways, I find that a rather silly term.
Additionally, one should not perform massive changes to a large volume of articles (or to an infobox) unless a consensus has been reached. You should have done that before you altered the Road infobox template. It would have saved time, and this lengthy discussion. Personally, I would advise you to not use delete or cancel when discussing an existing highway either ceasing to be or losing it's designation, as my example, which you cite, shows that those are even more ambiguous than using the term "decommissioned". Indeed, in the example I show above with highway 803, one could assume that the note " - deleted" is talking about the article itself, as it is a red link. That may also discourage someone from creating the article.
Additionally, I would suggest that it is in your (NE2) best interest that you stop altering articles to remove the term "decommissioned" until a consensus is reached. Looking at your talk page, there is no doubt that this has proved a controversial decision on your part. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 00:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • An academic paper referring to U.S. 99 as decommissioned.—Scott5114↗ 02:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
    • "Following the construction of the eight-lane Interstate 5 in the 1960s, the federal government eventually decommissioned Highway 99 as a federal roadway, leaving maintenance for the highway in the charge of state and local governments." Wow. Are you aware how wrong that one sentence is? I see three independent glaring errors. --NE2 02:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
      • What does that have to do with anything? The word was used in what appears to be a English master's thesis. Wouldn't the university's English department know if the word was misused? —Scott5114↗ 03:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
        • See below; it was misused. --NE2 04:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
          • No it wasn't. Unless you're saying were I to take a trip out to California I'd find US 99 alive and well?—Scott5114↗ 04:49, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
            • Please read the sentence. They say that it was decommissioned as a "federal roadway" and that with this came a change in maintenance. If you don't understand the U.S. Highway system, we have a good article on it that you can read. --NE2 05:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
              • I know there's no such thing as a federal route. That has nothing to do with this. —Scott5114↗ 06:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
                • Then you should know that the sentence does not use decommissioning "correctly", saying that it's a transfer from the federal government (like with other uses of the word). --NE2 06:39, 23 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)

Did they? They said the federal government "decommissioned" the highway, giving it to the states. That's in line with other uses of decommissioning, like with army bases, but doesn't describe the situation here: the highway lost one designation and got another. --NE2 03:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Um, NE2, you're giving the appearance here of being just a bit of a zealot. You've asked for reliable sources of "decommissioned" being used with respect to highways, but whenever someone comes up with one, you find some excuse to dismiss it ("spillover from the Route 66 community", "are you aware how wrong that one sentence is", etc.). I'm starting to wonder, if someone produced a definition out of the Oxford English Dictionary saying "decommissioned adj. Of a numbered highway, removed from formal designation as part of the relevant numbered highway system, with the actual roadway either retained for use, or demolished", if you'd then say, "Yeah, but that's just the OED, what do they know about highways?" or something. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm a "zealot" for clear wording that everyone can understand. --NE2 04:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
The answer, by the way, is that if the OED or another reliable dictionary defined the term that way, we'd be able to reference it on decommissioned highway and use it, so I would not have a problem with its usage. But we don't have any such source. --NE2 04:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Everyone, or you? Your replacements words are more ambiguous than the words they replace, and you are the first person to bring this up as far as I know. The everyones I have talked to say decommissioned makes more sense than deleted, cancelled or eliminated. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 04:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Have you looked at my most recent replacements? I replaced "The southern segment from San Carlos to Fort Apache was decommissioned and is maintained as Indian Route 9" with "The southern segment from San Carlos to Fort Apache was turned over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to maintain as Indian Route 9". In another edit, I removed the earlier "deleted" wording. I no longer support "deleted", or any single other word, as a catch-all term. --NE2 04:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Not having a catch-all term creates a situation where a consistent feel across articles is lost. I also find the "alternative" wording slightly poorer in quality than the text it replaced. Some of the phrases brought up here, such as "turned back", "canceled", and "deleted" are just as much neologisms in this context as you believe decommissioned is. At least with decommissioned, someone knows what it means. With the others...everyone is left guessing. --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 06:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
And if someone doesn't know, a simple link to decommissioned highway is enough to inform them. —Scott5114↗ 06:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Not if we can't have an article there. Remember that we need reliable sources that define the term. --NE2 06:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
We have four reliable sources. One of them is from a reviewed master's thesis. Nobody else supports the removal of the term. You're being overly picky here to get around that. —Scott5114↗ 09:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
You're forgetting about this: "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." --NE2 11:09, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Nobody writes specifically about decommissioned highways because most people don't find the topic interesting. Got that? Good. And I notice you fail to address the point that nobody supports your position. —Scott5114↗ 11:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
—Scott5114↗ 11:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Nobody writes about it? --NE2 11:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Mainly spillover from the Route 66 community. —Scott5114↗ 11:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[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)

You know, I am saying that using an unclear term damages the encyclopedia... --NE2 19:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
And we're saying we don't find it unclear. —Scott5114↗ 22:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course you don't; I don't either. But other people do. --NE2 23:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
What people? --Rschen7754 (T C) 23:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
The person at Talk:Decommissioned highway. The people on the reference desk. The person who wrote the cited paper, saying that maintenance of US 99 was transferred from the federal government to the states. --NE2 00:09, 24 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)

New suggestion

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)

Hey, that'll be fun! Next we can rewrite the Germany article in German, and the Mexico article in Spanish, and... —Steve Summit (talk) 21:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Your sarcasm isn't helping. --NE2 22:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. So what term should I use? If the state DOT uses "transferred to the town", I shouldn't use it? --Polaron | Talk 22:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
If the state uses "transferred to the town" then you should use it, because that was what happened. It was transferred to the town. There isn't any clearer way to say that, other than downloaded, but I don't think Americans use that term to define "responsibilities transferred from one level of government to the level below". vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 23:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
My point was that an encyclopedia does not merely parrot language from its primary sources: it reworks and rewords the material for the benefit of its perhaps less-specialist readers. So while there's a legitimate debate over whether "decommissioned" is the best term for a perhaps non-specialist reader, the right fix is not to replace it in three different places with three different presumably-synonymous terms used by three different local highway departments, because even if one of those is the best and least confusing term, the other two won't be. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:37, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Is there any reason we can't combine the two rows in the infobox, saying "existed: 1926-1985"? It avoids the problem, removes a row, and looks cleaner. --NE2 20:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I've implemented this; see U.S. Route 66 and User:NE2/testing. Does this look good? --NE2 21:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
There is a US Route 0? It looks good, and the "Decomd." wasn't very pleasing, either. I prefer to avoid acronyms. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 21:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
There is now, thanks to the national debt. --NE2 22:15, 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)

Being specific is actually needed if we want to get articles to FA. I can't find the exact FAC that it was mentioned in, but I know it was mentioned before O2 (息 • 吹) 02:51, 24 October 2007 (GMT)

Request

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)

It sounds okay so far, but could you provide some examples? --Rschen7754 (T C) 00:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
M-35, Pennsylvania Route 45 → Pennsylvania Route 248, Pennsylvania Route 9 → Interstate 476, Indiana State Road 6 → U.S. Route 6, and a whole lot more. O2 (息 • 吹) 00:56, 24 October 2007 (GMT)
... no, examples of the actual prose changes. --Rschen7754 (T C) 00:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Pennsylvania Route 245: In 1946, the highway was deleted. → The route was eliminated from the state highway system in 1946. O2 (息 • 吹) 01:14, 24 October 2007 (GMT)
No, specific uses of the word "decommissioned" being explained, as the original post that I replied to suggested. --Rschen7754 (T C) 01:18, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd have no problem with Route 4 was decommissioned on 1991-08-09 and became Route C or Route 10 was decommissioned on 1919-04-04 and is currently maintained by Jasper County. —Scott5114↗ 01:23, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Instead of "Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985", "in 1985, the remaining part of the Route 66 designation became State Highway 66". Instead of "Interstate 80N was decommissioned in 1980", "Interstate 80N became Interstate 84 in 1980". Instead of "Highway 789 was decommissioned in 1985", "the Highway 789 designation was removed in 1985, since it had no independent portions". Instead of "Route 4 was decommissioned in 1974", "the state turned back Route 4 to the county in 1974, which now maintains it as County Road 46". --NE2 02:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Um, no. Do you think we're stupid? --Rschen7754 (T C) 03:40, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
No - They're just suggesting more appropriate ways to state it. Its becoming clear decommissioned isn't acceptable. master sonT - C 03:44, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Um, no, considering that the consensus still supports it. --Rschen7754 (T C) 03:47, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
No, I think you're intelligent enough to realize when you're wrong. --NE2 03:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Correctness is in the eye of the beholder. --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 03:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
As long as you promote "it's my way or the highway," you won't get anywhere. This "compromise" is simply a rephrasing of what you did to begin this mess. --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:01, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
"It's decommissioned or the highway"? --NE2 04:07, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
We agreed to a compromise using the word decommissioned and making teh meaning obvious... --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:09, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Then what's the point of using the word if you don't need it? --NE2 04:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
When did we agree? master sonT - C 16:03, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Varying word choice. —Scott5114↗ 10:13, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


What would we use for the infobox? --Holderca1 01:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Existed: 1927–1953 (example) O2 (息 • 吹) 01:33, 24 October 2007 (GMT)
Wouldn't that be just as confusing? For example someone might assume that the roadway no longer exists? --Holderca1 01:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
An infobox only gives readers background information. It does not fill in details. O2 (息 • 吹) 02:01, 24 October 2007 (GMT)
I think we all know what an infobox is, but it's not supposed to be misleading or confusing. Existed is no more clear than what we have now. --Holderca1 02:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
So put, perhaps on a new row beneath, a "current status" designation: "in service as Podunk Street", "abandoned but weed-grown pavement exists in spots", "overlain by new I-5 alignment", "utterly demolished", whatever. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
The infobox is about the route number; the road itself usually existed before the "formed" date. --NE2 03:00, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so then why is decommissioned unclear if it is talking about the route number? --Holderca1 03:33, 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)

Go ahead. O2 (息 • 吹) 21:00, 26 October 2007 (GMT)
Do what? Don't remove decommissioned. But if it's merging permastubs, that's not an issue. --Rschen7754 (T C) 21:06, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Replace decommissioned and deleted with clearer language. That includes dealing with articles like Deleted state highways in California. --NE2 21:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
If it takes 7-8 words to say what "decommissioned" says, it's pointless. --Rschen7754 (T C) 21:13, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
We can't say what decommissioned means, because we don't have a reliably-sourced definition. --NE2 21:15, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
But we do. --Rschen7754 (T C) 21:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Not unless we find one that accurately describes the word. And it better not be a dictionary. O2 (息 • 吹) 21:22, 26 October 2007 (GMT)
If a dictionary were to give a definition as we use it for highways, it would be fine. --NE2 21:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
How about "State Route X was decomissioned in 2001 and became Z County Route Y" with the X,Y, and Z being replaced with whatever fits? I don't have a problem with that, and nobody except for NE2 does it seems. Smartyllama 19:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Consensus isn't here

There is no consensus here for the removal of decommissioned. --Rschen7754 (T C) 05:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

There's no consensus to use it. --NE2 18:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no consensus to not use it, and we're going to keep going around in this circle until one side gives up—which doesn't look very likely. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 19:03, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
You don't need consensus to clarify articles. --NE2 19:07, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
You do when one's interpretation of "clarify" differs from others. --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 19:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Back at ya. --NE2 19:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
And your point is what? Anyone with two eyes can see I don't agree with your interpretation and that you don't agree with anyone's other than your own. --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 19:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Anyone with two eyes can see that [7] is a horrible edit. --NE2 20:05, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It's not horrible, but the entirety of the article, not just those phrases, does need to be rewritten. And this isn't how it should be rewritten. --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 20:11, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Would you like an eyepatch? We're having a special: two for $2... --NE2 20:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
NPA, please. At least this proves my statement above was correct... --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 20:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It proves nothing but your defense of knee-jerk reverting. --NE2 20:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It proves you will refuse to consider that your opinion may be misguided or, god forbid, wrong. If half a dozen other people had a different opinion as me, I'd begin to have second thoughts on my stance. --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 20:37, 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)

Status quo is not using a neologism. --NE2 20:45, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Status quo is defined as "The state of things; the way things are, as opposed to the way they could be; the existing state of affairs." The existing state of affairs has 'decommissioned' in articles.—Scott5114↗ 20:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
The state of things is that "decommissioned" doesn't apply to highways. --NE2 20:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
You're not getting my point. As of right now, decommissioned is used in some articles, thus, the status quo would be leaving it.—Scott5114↗ 20:58, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
You're not getting my point. Since the term isn't used in the real world to any appreciable amount, we are better off using other words. Better safe than sorry. --NE2 21:03, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, whatever. I'm saying that as it stands right now, the term is used in articles, thus making it the status quo, and as no consensus has been reached in regards to a change, we do nothing. That's the point. —Scott5114↗ 21:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
We do what's best for the readers. --NE2 21:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Each DOT uses a different term, so I don't understand the need to change this particular one. It isn't a neologism either, the word has been defined for quite some time and that same definition is used towards highways. --Holderca1 21:11, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It's been defined to mean that something is removed from service. --NE2 21:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Right, so what is the issue? --Holderca1 21:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
That most "decommissioned" highways have not been removed from service. You can still drive them. --NE2 21:28, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, but why do you think removed from service and not being able to drive them is the same thing? --Holderca1 21:30, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Because that is the complete definition of decommission. O2 (息 • 吹) 21:31, 31 October 2007 (GMT)
No, it is not. To give another example. Officers in the military are commissioned officers. Now when they resign their commission, they don't die or cease to exist. You are thinking that decommission and close mean the same thing when they don't. --Holderca1 21:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I concur with the above. "Removed from service" can mean that the use of the road as a "numbered highway for example" is in the past. -- JA10 Talk • Contribs 21:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually reread definition one from the link you provided, "to remove or revoke a commission." It says nothing about destroying or closing. Just as to commission something doesn't mean to create or open. --Holderca1 21:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
And what's a "commission" in terms of highways? I can't find anything. --NE2 21:46, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It is the same as it applies to everything else, "An official charge or authority to do something". --Holderca1 21:55, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
So you give a highway "an official charge or authority to do something"? What would that "something" be, and how would the highway "do" it? --NE2 22:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
That something would be state maintenance as part of the route system. —Scott5114↗ 22:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Assuming that's an accurate definition, that's not consistent with our use of "decommissioned". As far as I know, no parts of US 66 lost state maintenance in 1985; they remained as Interstates or state-numbered highways. --NE2 22:26, 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)

You haven't explained how this applies to highways. Highways aren't people that do jobs. --NE2 23:30, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry I can't explain basic vocabulary in a way that you can understand it. But this magic dictionary that defines words for every use doesn't exist, they typically only provide one example of it in use. --Holderca1 23:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I understand it, and it doesn't apply here. --NE2 23:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Well obviously not since we are having this discussion. Your word of choice is deleted, how is that not a neologism as it applies to highways, a general audience understands decommissioned more so than they understand deleted. --Holderca1 01:27, 1 November 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)

To discuss what best to replace it with. --NE2 00:38, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
However, people obviously disagree with you. So you are willing to override consensus because "you're right"? --Rschen7754 (T C) 00:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
We are supposed to be "bold". Maybe his dictionary defines his actions as boldness? vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 01:17, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Being bold does not mean that you choose to override consensus when people are obviously objecting. --Rschen7754 (T C) 01:29, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
According to which dictionary? ;) My dictionary doesn't list anything that might be best to replace the "neologism" so why not revert to the status quo? Undo this entire thing to how things were on 20 October, and put it behind us. Perhaps if someone found an example from before 20 October where average Joe Reader questioned the use of "decommissioned" NE2 would have a case here. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 01:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Good point. NE2 was only trying to help average Joe readers understand the meanings of the terminology, but it has fallen upon us that almost nobody was questioning the status quo. I'm all in reverting to the status quo here. O2 (息 • 吹) 02:24, 01 November 2007 (GMT)
Talk:Decommissioned highway --NE2 02:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
That has absolutely no coherence to what I had just said. Relating to that link, though, you need to find a worldwide-acceptable solution to this if you plan to continue this discussion. O2 (息 • 吹) 02:51, 01 November 2007 (GMT)
That is the first person I saw questioning our use of the term. I don't know what you mean by "find a worldwide-acceptable solution"; if using clear descriptions like "maintenance was transferred to the county" or "the US 66 designation was removed" isn't "worldwide-acceptable", what is? --NE2 02:57, 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)

Mediation and discussion restart

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)

User:Lpangelrob

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)

Those who agree with this

  1. Rschen7754 (T C) 22:07, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  2. See also Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/NE2 3 for a list of reliable sources using the term. —Scott5114↗ 22:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  1. As well as my sourced definition of decommissioned above that has been posted for a couple of days without opposition with this edit [8]. --Holderca1 22:23, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
    • That's not sourced; a "commission" could mean many things for a highway. It could mean it's part of the National Highway System, or STRAHNET, or closed for use by Presidental transport. --NE2 22:45, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
      • "please don't reply to other users' sections" --Holderca1 22:47, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
        • I don't know... I'm replying to your agreement, to keep it from appearing like a straight vote. Why is it OK to reply only in the affirmative? --NE2 22:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
          • I don't know, haven't done one of these mediation things on here before, just going off what was stated above. Probably to keep the two viewpoints separate, if you replied your viewpoint here to every comment, and those that agree here replied to yours in your section, it would be a big mess. --Holderca1 23:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  1. I really have a hard time understanding how such a simple term can have caused so much dissension. Decommission is a perfectly understandable term to apply to a route designation. And it is clearly not a neologism. older ≠ wiser 23:11, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  2. I agree with all the above. Removing the "term" should have never happened. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 23:24, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
  3. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 23:52, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Err, can you explain why? This isn't a vote. O2 (息 • 吹) 23:54, 04 November 2007 (GMT)
      • Presumably, he agrees exactly with Rob and doesn't feel the need to elaborate on that.—Scott5114↗ 23:57, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Or, he decided to follow directions. --Rschen7754 (T C) 00:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  4. TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 19:12, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  5. master sonT - C 23:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  6. --Mihsfbstadium 23:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

User:NE2

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":

  • Removal of U.S. Route 66 signs, while the state continues to maintain the road as Interstate 40 and State Highway 66 (note that U.S. Routes and Interstates are generally maintained by the state, not federal government)
  • Renumbering of U.S. Route 666 to U.S. Route 491, where the only change is the number on the signs
  • Giving a state highway to the local authorities to maintain
  • Keeping State Route 77 in the state highway system, but transferring its funding classification (and therefore number) from primary to secondary
  • Closing State Route 480 to traffic and tearing it down

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)

Those who agree with this

  1. Simple: use clearer language. Both sides have equally strong arguments, but the other side is not explaining effectively how the term is suitable for a die-hard researcher. The usage of clearer language in articles defeats the purpose of "decommission", as evident here. O2 (息 • 吹) 23:47, 04 November 2007 (GMT)

User:Scott5114

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.

Those who agree with this

  1. --Holderca1 14:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  2. TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 19:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  3. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 21:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  4. Agree with this as a basically neutral description. --NE2 23:17, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  5. master sonT - C 23:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  6. older ≠ wiser 02:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

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)

Reliable sources almost never use the term; when they do, it appears to be "spillover" from the Route 66 community's use of it. It really isn't common usage among professionals, only among "roadgeeks". --NE2 23:15, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
That's your opinion. Many of us do not share that, other than the DOTs not using the term, which as we've seen, DOTs seem to have no uniform term for this. —Scott5114↗ 23:49, 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)

I agree with this assessment. Decommissioned should only be used when the entire designation has been removed from the route, not just a portion. I don't know of too many instances where a chunk has been removed from the middle. Typically if this happens the route is given a new alignment where decommissioned wouldn't be the right word to use, perhaps, realigned or moved to a new alignment would be appropriate in this situation. --Holderca1 talk 14:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, it doesn't seem to be too common a situation out of Oklahoma (see Oklahoma State Highway 5, Oklahoma State Highway 74.) —Scott5114↗ 14:31, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
That happened in Ontario all over the place in 1998, when the province downloaded many highways (made them the responsibilities of municipalities instead of the province). A new highway opened just outside of Thunder Bay in August, and highway designations were shifted around on several roads for it, it was referred to as "re-designating" for some stretches which saw their numbers changed, and "downloading" for routes that lost highway status and came under municipal control. The new highway was "opened". Downloaded was also used for more of the highways that lost their numbers in 1998, but downloaded is exclusive to Canada and is a neologism, so it's right out. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 16:36, 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)

Especially so if the county took over maintenance afterward. ;) —Scott5114↗ 18:27, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
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