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Hi. When searching on Google for road lengths, I can't find any gov.uk reports etc. Does anyone have any suggestions of any useful websites? I have tried Google Maps, although it tries to take shortcuts. Thanks, Roads4117 (talk) 19:15, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/mastermap-highways is likely an authoritative source, but you'll need to sign up for an open data license (they're fairly easy to get on this side of the pond). For Google maps (the web version), you can click and drag on the middle of the line to set waypoints. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 21:31, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - I will have a look at it. Roads4117 (talk) 07:25, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find the road lengths on this website. I am using the app edition of Google Maps. Roads4117 (talk) 07:13, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's because it's GIS data and not a simple table of lengths. You'll need to download a program like QGIS and run queries on the data. There are lots of tutorials that you can Google that will show you how to do that. –Fredddie™ 01:11, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ok then - will have a look. Roads4117 (talk) 07:03, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any other useful websites, that don't include downloading programs, or is that the only trusted website for road lengths? Roads4117 (talk) 07:51, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[Restoring archived post in chronological order, for reader convenience. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:20, 31 August 2022 (UTC)][reply]

Roads4117 has been adding to the list of "major junctions" in many articles. Their view (Roads4117, correct me if I have misunderstood) is that if the joining road is an A-class road, then by definition that makes it major. My view is that only national ['green'] routes are notable enough to be listed, but as a minimum the joining road has to be notable enough to have its own article. But, apart from WP:general notability guidelines, I can find no policy statement either way. Am I being too picky? Does anybody really care if Wikipedia becomes a simulacrum of Sabre Roads? John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:02, 7 July 2022 (UTC) }[reply]

Hello

Me and John Maynard Friedman have been having a debate about what is classified as a major junction, on my userpage. I was wondering if you could help.

Many thanks, Roads4117 (talk) 08:28, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I posted this question here on 7 July and got no response. At user talk:Roads4117#Should the A4012 be on the A4146 infobox?, Ritchie333 concurred with my view that it is WP:undue. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:20, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to know their views Roads4117 (talk) 12:28, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

John Maynard Friedman apologies for not seeing the original discussion a month ago. There has always been a certain amount of editor discretion used to decide what is or is not a major junction, so there will probably never be a notability guideline for infobox junctions. On one hand, A4146 and A4012 both have four digits so neither route is very long (that's my rudimentary understanding of route numbering in the UK), but on the other hand, A4012 is the only route that's not on green signs. Both arguments are valid, but ultimately it does not matter if A4012 is included or not. Roads4117 that's not a carte blanche to add any four-digit route to any infobox, you have to be measured and be able to explain your reasoning.

As far as Wikipedia becoming Sabre Roads, it's been my experience with U.S. roadgeek sites that people who operate them generally don't want to edit here because they don't want to bother with those pesky 'cite your sources' rules. They're also used to their word being taken for gospel, so they don't like that any rando can edit (nearly) any article after them. That being said, we should strive to be better than Sabre Roads. Use it as a guide but don't copy it outright. Scour the newspaper archives and create better content. –Fredddie™ 13:54, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The four-digit roads make a poor example, because few are important national primary routes in themselves. At the opposite extreme, see A1 road (Great Britain) (London–Edinburgh) with hundreds of junctions. [Some routes are born great etc.]

So yes, a junction with another four-digit road might be WP:DUE for a given four-digit road but is likely to be WP:UNDUE for one of the single digit roads. My main concern is with infoboxes getting clogged with trivia – ref WP:NOTEVERYTHING.

So I guess what is needed is some advice to editors regarding what is discreet and what is indiscreet [wrong word I know but I guess you know what I mean]. I like my infoboxes to be an alternative lead and so meet the standards of WP:LEAD: keep it concise. Someone in a rush should be able to get the key points of the article from the lead and the infobox and not get bogged down in ifs buts and excepts. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:30, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For the US, we fairly strictly enforce a 10-junction limit on the infobox, borne out of commentary at an FAC in like 2006 or so. Depending on the length of the subject of the article, that means we start playing with some general rules of thumb. We'd list all intersecting Interstates, then intersecting US Highways, then finally add intersecting state highways. County roads, if applicable, are the lowest tier and rarely listed, usually only on an article about another county road.

If we have to break ties, freeway status trumps non-freeways, two-digit Interstates trump three digits, etc. In some cases, to break a tie for the last entry, we omit both to avoid going over the limit. The idea is to apply some logic to making the decision. Start with the most important junctions and work downward in priority to fill out the list, stopping at the desired limit. When in doubt, remember that all of them above a certain threshold priority will be in the junction list table anyway. I think of the infobox as an adjunct to the lead: the text of the lead summarizes the text of the article, and the junction list in the infobox summarizes the junction list table while carrying a few other details. Imzadi 1979 → 14:47, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Let me reply to myself to add one thing I didn't mention before. Just because we have 10 as our upper limit doesn't mean we always list 10. To keep the infobox proportional to the prose in the lead, we might only list 6 junctions. A freeway like M-6 (Michigan highway) only intersects two other highways aside from its termini, so it has just two intermediate junctions in the infobox. Imzadi 1979 → 15:10, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Fredddie.

My opinion is that is depends on the length of the road. For example, the A1 or the A38 should only have primary routes in the infobox, because otherwise, as John Maynard Friedman said on my userpage, the infobox would get cluttered with trivia. However, on a smaller route, such as the A4146, then non-primary routes are fine. I also think there should be maximum of 20 routes per infobox, before going primary routes only.

Many thanks, Roads4117 (talk) 14:31, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As I noted above, Roads4117, USRD has a fairly strict 10-junction limit based on good feedback on a Featured Article Candidate like 15 years ago. On my screen, my browser window approximates a sheet of paper, and I wouldn't want the infobox to be longer than the text of the lead plus table of contents, give or take. (The new Vector 2022 skin will do similar by limiting line length regardless of window width.) For that reason, I'd say that your idea of 20 junctions is too many. Imzadi 1979 → 14:54, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Even 20 may be pushing it. Generally 10 is the usual maximum, with the occasional exception for long routes or for backbones that have a lot of freeways branching from them. Floydian ^τ _¢ 15:01, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ok then. Roads4117 (talk) 15:02, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Imzadi1979, I like that rule of thumb. It means that it is the editors who know a route well who are left to decide which ones are DUE and which ones UNDUE, rather than have some arbitrary "one-size-fits-all" rule like "only 1- and 2- digit road junctions in a 1-digit road infobox" [deliberately extreme to illustrate the point]. I suspect an exception might need to be made for the A1 as it is so long, but maybe the 'baseline' rule would be 10 in England and 10 in Scotland as a starting point. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:59, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that even for the A1, 10 tops. Not 10 for England and 10 for Scotland, 10 total. There are currently 69 junctions there. On my screen, the infobox ends in the middle of the Inns section, meaning it is longer than the lead, the table of contents and the history section. That's very excessive, and actually, it's longer than the junction list table, so that infobox is no longer acting as a summary of the article. Imzadi 1979 → 16:06, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just took a cursory look at the A1 and if I were going to redo the junctions in the infobox, I would only include the motorways. That's one way you can really pare down the list. –Fredddie™ 17:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, it wouldn't hurt to include locations. Sure the A1 intersects the M25, but where? –Fredddie™ 17:42, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Imzadi1979: and I thought that it was I who was being the martinet! [I agree by the way]. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:07, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree - just do the motorways for the A1. Roads4117 (talk) 06:15, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have boldly reduced the number of junctions in the A1 infobox, not to motorways only but motorways plus major long-distance dual carriageways, a total of 15, by including only those roads shown at the most zoomed-out level at https://streetmap.co.uk/, to see what it looks like. Thoughts?  Dr Greg  talk  14:33, 11 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Dr Greg Thank you. Roads4117 16:51, 11 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Should we make the A38 motorways only, because otherwise the infobox is too big. There are currently 57 roads there. Roads4117 (talk) 06:20, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At talk:A508 road, John Maynard Friedman asked The A508 ends at a roundabout with four other exits: A5 southbound, local road into Old Stratford, A422 westbound, A5 northbound. So the last junction [on the A508] is with the A5 and the A422. To list the A422 after the A5 implies a sequence that doesn't exist.

No doubt there are other examples of roundabouts with diverse exits. How are they shown? John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:00, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I have been wondering this for a while too. Whenever I have come across something like this, I just make it look the same as the rest of infobox, however that does not reflect on the real-world. Thanks, Roads4117 (talk) 06:59, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just looked up the documentation for the {{jct}} template, and it supports multiple roads. In this example, {{jct|country=GBR|A|5|A|422}} does the job:

A5 / A422

which I have implemented in the article. -- Dr Greg  talk  13:04, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Dr Greg Thank you for answering our question. Roads4117 (talk) 17:36, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this rule of "Citing Each & Every Paragraph" seems to be affecting the content shown on some "road articles", especially recently-created ones. The rule is only enforced by "some" strict editors on road articles apparently.

I recently created an article named M18 (Pretoria), as part of my project of giving each Metropolitan Route in Pretoria its own article. Then, I went to check it out today & I saw the entire "Route" section erased by User:Onel5969; he only left the "first paragraph" because there was a "citation" referring to a road name change. I tried to put back the Information and was told again to "cite my work", almost accused of Disruptive Editing. Only the Introduction has citations, which I believe is the norm for most road articles that have already been accepted.

So, User:Onel5969 only left the "first paragraph" under the "Route" section of M18 (Pretoria) and I was wondering why he would start a story without finishing it (saying "the road starts at this junction and goes this direction" without completing the section); by default, I instead finished erasing the entire section for him! Then, I went to check on "older" road articles for the same nation of South Africa, such as the M11 (Johannesburg), N18 (South Africa), N3 (South Africa), N1 (South Africa) & R21 (South Africa) articles and realized that they are in Exactly the same situation of the entire "Route" section not having citations.

I went to the M6 (Pretoria) article and also found the "Route" section erased. I began to wonder why my articles, which are only several weeks old, were Edited like that while those older articles are not being touched by any editor for the enforcement of that "Cite Each & Every Paragraph" Rule! From Every "road article" I have ever created, I have never faced this challenge of being told to "cite" the "Route" section; these M6 & M18 articles are the first ones where I have seen the "Route" section removed.

So, for those articles of mine where the "Route" section has been erased, which websites would you recommend to be used as citations on "Each & Every Paragraph"? Are Google Maps and OpenStreetMap good enough?

Sorry for making my speech long; I just needed to explain the entire scenario. Thanks.Chils Kemptonian (talk) 21:35, 20 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Onel5969: what gives? –Fredddie™ 23:36, 20 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please read WP:VERIFY. WP frowns on WP:OR. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 23:56, 20 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nowhere in WP:V does it say every paragraph needs a citation. WP:V says all content needs to be verifiable, and any material whose veracity could be challenged needs a reliable inline citation, with a significantly lower threshold for derogatory claims about living people. In fact, at one time, WP:V used to explicitly say that "The sky is blue" does NOT need an inline citation. That was back in a simpler time in Wikipedialand. The essay (not policy) Wikipedia:When to cite has some guidelines, but again, it's an essay, so not a mandate. However the problem is what is likely to be challenged and what isn't is a huge gray area. What is obvious to one is not to another. Also per those same guidelines, if there is a disagreement on if something needs a citation, the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim, not the person skeptical of the claim. My personal thoughts, I also am frustrated with the "Citation Karens", they can be almost as bad as the "tag Karens". However, while frustrating, they are on the right side of Wikipedia policy. However, yes, you can cite a route description to a map or satellite image, within reason. See WP:MAPCITE for more of my opinions on that subject.

However, now that I've said that, I'll say this. I read the deleted route description and it is basically a junctions list in prose format. I can't judge you for that, as there's hundreds of road articles whose route description is the same thing. However, IMHO, the entire reason why we create junction tables and straight line diagrams, because that type of information is more quickly conveyed in table form. I prefer route descriptions to tell me what I can't gleam from a table. Is this an urban road, does it cross farmland, mountains, rivers? Any scenery or historical events or landmarks anybody driving this road should be aware of? Those are the route descriptions that I think are good. As an added bonus, that information can be sourced to travel guides, newspaper articles, and topographical maps, so your route description will have more than just Google maps as a source. Granted some roads are frankly notable but boring and there isn't much of that type of content to add to a route descriptions. But I always at least try to include that content. Just my $.02. Dave (talk) 00:34, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Onel5969: I think you have the actually policy a bit wrong. The "in a nutshell" there says:

Readers must be able to check that any of the information within Wikipedia articles is not just made up. This means all material must be attributable to reliable, published sources. Additionally, quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by inline citations.

The key word there, for me, is "attributable", which is not the same as "attributed". In short, can we add a citation for the content, not is one present. BLPs, certain statistics, direct quotations, etc. need citations, but per that policy, the rest actually doesn't unless you want to challenge everything. Imzadi 1979 → 13:40, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are significant walls of text here that I don't have time to read.

@Chils Kemptonian: presumably you used a map or two to craft the original route description. Just restore your original content and place citations to that map/those maps at the end of each paragraph.

When I write a new route description, I plot out the driving directions from end to end in Google Maps, and then switch to the satellite layer. Now I have a source for the landscape details I will be putting in my writing. I also cross reference the directions against the official state highway map. So I put a pair of footnotes at the end of each paragraph: the paper map and Google Maps. Sometimes I have to interweave other sources for other details, but this is my basic template that's used on articles assessed at all levels of the scale. Imzadi 1979 → 08:35, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, when you have a moment, please search for "Category:Metropolitan Routes in Pretoria" and review every article that is under that Category! Every article there was created by me recently and most if not all of them were reviewed by User:Imzadi1979 & User:SunDawn. Anyway, I guess just looking at the way the M6 (Pretoria) and M18 (Pretoria) articles were treated automatically means that I need to edit my approach, right?

One more time, please compare the N18 (South Africa)#Route content to the content that was erased from the M6 (Pretoria) route section. I still can't understand why we are enforcing this rule on "selected" articles and not all of them!

Sometimes I wonder where GPSs get their information from, as it is difficult for an ordinary citizen to know where to find a "book", "website" or just any source that has all the roads listed!

When I created articles for Roads in Zambia in recent years, I would specifically cite the "Roads & Road Traffic Amendment Act, Cap 464", as every single "numbered route" is listed in there as well as the towns they pass through. But for Numbered routes in South Africa, I do not see any better citation than Google Earth, since South Africa has Road Signs on 99% of its roads; but finding other citations might be difficult.

Every one of the Metropolitan Routes in Johannesburg, from M1 to M99, has got its own article on Wikipedia and I am currently trying to do the same thing for Roads in Pretoria. But in case I don't have proper citations, I might just have to resort to creating those articles with Introductions and Infoboxes only. Chils Kemptonian (talk) 03:56, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Onel5969: Rather than unproductively removing content, why not try to find a citation? --Rschen7754 04:47, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Saying "article X does it this way, so why can't I do the same with article Y" doesn't help. The goal is to make all articles better. There's something like 3 million articles in Wikipedia, and no one person can review them all, so of course there's going to be some articles that are more heavily scrutinized than others. I don't believe going around and tagging every flaw I see in an article helps the encyclopedia; nor do I do blanket deletions of content that I don't think 100% complies with Wikipedia policies. If I'm brutally honest, I don't have a high opinion of editors who do such things. I'd rather do a quick edit of an article and fix a flaw or two for that same amount of effort, even knowing there are more flaws in the article I haven't fixed. In my opinion a flawed article, that needs re-writing or more sources, yet adequately describes the subject, is educational, and is consistent with what little I know or can find on other sites about the topic is of much more value than a 2 sentence sourced stub that only states the blatantly obvious, or one that has more colorful tags than text. But neither of us is the king of Wikipedia and weather we like it or not, Wikipedia policy does allow for such behavior. The long term solution is to improve the article so that there are no grounds to tag or blank parts of the article.

For the short term I understand your frustration, but don't give up. Just do the best you can with what you have. Though I was a bit critical of the route description you wrote that was deleted, I accept that all could have been obtained from a map and not be considered original research. So for now just add the map you used while writing that as a source. However I'd still improve it for the long term. I primarily write about roads in the USA, where we're fortunate that the US and Interstate highways are well documented in the relevant government agency's logs. (However, that's not true for many locally maintained roads). Until recently, this was very much not the case for rail lines in the USA. Most articles about rail lines in the USA only had historical information, if they had details about length, termini, distances, etc. it was either unsourced or sourced to Google maps or an outdated paper map. But finally the FRA put official GIS data on their website a few years ago, and in the last 3-4 years, the article quality for US rail articles has significantly improved. I understand completely when you say I work on roads in this country, but the ministry of transport's web site is useless. While not the best, you can still gleam quite a bit of info from Google Maps and still stay within the bounds of Wikipedia policies about No original research and verifiability. Google maps includes a distance measuring tool that is accurate to 1 km, Google does state the actual publisher of the data they used for the map (Google does not actually draft maps, they publish the work of others). Google includes satellite and topo views, which are usually derived independently, again they list the publisher, as a check that the information in the map is correct. So using Google maps is often actually using 2-3 independent sources. Most governments publish either a paper or online map that would be considered an official source. Don't neglect paper maps. You'd be surprised what you can do with with a paper map. Before Google Maps included it's distance utility, I used two pins, a string, and the map scale to measure distances, and even that was accurate to 2-3km. It can be done. Have you tried emailing the contact on the website for the Ministry of Transport? I've been pleasantly surprised how helpful they have been, even if their website sucks. The Utah Department of Transportation once responded to my questions with a report, that they didn't think were worthy of publishing on their website, but contained valuable info for a Wikipedia article. Last but not least, don't neglect searching the local newspaper's archives. You'd be surprised what highway information can be found there. Any time there's a major accident, or a dedication of a new highway, the newspaper will usually cite some transportation study or quote someone from the ministry of Transport. Dave (talk) 05:07, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the replies, everybody. I now understand. Chils Kemptonian (talk) 11:46, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But remember what I said in my initial scenario. It is not right to "start a story without finishing it". So, if the "Route" section is going to be erased from an article, it's best to erase the "Entite" section and not to pick specific paragraphs to remove! Mentioning that "story" quarter-way or even halfway would constitute incompleteness. That's what I suggest. Chils Kemptonian (talk) 12:04, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Chils Kemptonian, I had the same problem at A404 road - they deleted about a third of the article, and due to this, the article made no sense whatsoever. Thanks Roads4117 (talk) 06:15, 22 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think the general consensus here is that Onel was overzealous of requiring citations for content that is hardly contentious.

- Floydian ^τ _¢ 16:56, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

User:Floydian, User:Chils Kemptonian, User:Moabdave, User:Fredddie, User:Imzadi1979, FYI this is still a problem - deleted route section on A1011 road. Will post a message on user talk page Roads4117 (talk) 14:56, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Message sent Roads4117 (talk) 15:12, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with the actions by Onel5969 in these situations as I believe the interpretation of policies to be wrong and the deletions to be very heavy-handed and said as much on my talk page recently, and I think that the editor is being overly zealous to challenge content for the sake of challenging, especially when consistency would require said editor to start deleting sections from potentially thousands of articles to enforce this viewpoint. However, there is an easier solution than arguing these points ad infinitum without resolution, resorting to the drama boards, etc.

Roads4117, as I noted in a previous comment to this overall thread, presumably you used some sort of map citation in crafting the route description in the article. If so, just place a citation to that map at the end of each paragraph, and this editor can no longer say it is uncited. Seriously, route descriptions are the absolute easiest prose in a highway article to cite because the driving directions from terminus to terminus in Google Maps showing the satellite view will cover most of the content of the section. Just export the link and paste it into {{google maps}} with an appropriate descriptive title and the access date, and you are done. It's even better to also provide an appropriate official road map from the agency that owns/maintains the roadway, or even a citation to a map in a commercially printed atlas (like Rand McNally for the US and Canada). Imzadi 1979 → 22:12, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

+1 and I will also note that WP:GA and WP:FA as well as our own assessment scale do require adding these citations for anything B-Class and above. So even if nobody is going around blanking the sections, you might as well do it now rather than later @Roads4117 and Chils Kemptonian:. --Rschen7754 00:08, 27 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both for each saying in one sentence what I took 3 paragraphs to explain. I can be verbose sometimes ;) Dave (talk) 04:41, 27 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Imzadi1979 and Rschen7754, thank you for the information. I will try to do this somepoint today. Roads4117 (talk) 05:54, 27 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Has been reported to ANI - is now not doing it just to road articles, but to everything. If we don't act, then it will more than likely get out of control Roads4117 (talk) 15:48, 27 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Of course we need to follow our basic policies and guidelines in the "Route Section." It has the same requirement to be sourced that any other content does. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:58, 27 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]