Wikipedia:WikiProject Roads in Maryland/Editing guide

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This is a guide to contributing to numbered highway articles in the project. To find out how to contribute to other articles in this project, you can refer to other WikiProjects (such as WikiProject Bridges for bridge articles). The standards here are intended as either ways to apply established Wikipedia policies and guidelines to these articles or are meant to complement those policies and guidelines to give articles within this project a consistent style. If you feel that any of these standards violate Wikipedia's policies and/or guidelines, let the project members know on the project's talk page. Likewise, if you think the standards and guidelines given below can be improved, or if you disagree with a change that is made here, please discuss your proposal with the project's members on the talk page.

Contents

[edit] Checking for existing articles

Before creating an article for Route X, you should check the route list to see if someone created an article on the same route but with a different name, you should also note that the agreed-upon naming convention for state highway articles is Maryland Route X, so not only is that where you should create your article, but if you see an article residing at another convention, you should move or merge it into the agreed-upon convention. More information on naming is given below at #Article names and terminology

[edit] Article names and terminology

[edit] State highways

  • Articles on individual state highways of Maryland are to be named Maryland Route X where X is replaced with the route number.
  • In article titles, the term state highway should be used to refer to Maryland's state highways (as opposed to terms such as state route, state road, etc.). If disambiguation is necessary use Maryland state highway. For example: List of Maryland state highways.
Examples of this convention used in article text:
  • State highways in Baltimore, Maryland are maintained by the city. (it is implied that these are Maryland state highways)
  • Maryland Route 2 is longer than many other Maryland state highways. (without "Maryland" to disambiguate, this sentence would imply that MD 2 is longer than many state highways in all states, thus undesirably changing the meaning of the sentence)
  • Other terms used by the state government and the general public are also acceptable in article text (but for conformity only the aforementioned convention should be used in article titles). (examples: MD X, Maryland X, even Route X as long as it's not used in an ambiguous way)

[edit] Interstate highways and U.S. highways

[edit] General

  • When naming an article, use unambiguous names. For example, Bay Bridge can refer to a number of bridges, and therefore shouldn't be the name of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge article. If the name of something needs to be disambiguated, disambiguate using the commonly used convention, this follows from "use common names" (ex: Chesapeake Bay Bridge, not Bay Bridge (Maryland)). If a name doesn't have a widely used way to disambiguate it, use parentheses (ex: Gay Street (Baltimore)).
  • Terms used to identify an individual entity are proper nouns and are capitalized (Maryland Route 2, Gay Street, Chesapeake Bay Bridge (when referring to the bridge with this name)), while terms that are not used to identify an individual entity are common nouns, and only proper nouns within them are capitalized (business route, Maryland state highway, Chesapeake Bay bridge (when referring to any bridge crossing the Chesapeake Bay)).
  • Adjectives derived from proper nouns are also capitalized. For example, when Interstate is used as an adjective that refers to the Interstate Highway System it should be capitalized, therefore a highway that traverses multiple states is an interstate highway, while a highway on the Interstate Highway System is an Interstate highway.
  • Remember that Wikipedia is written for a general audience, not roadgeeks, or members of highway agencies. Terms such as "multiplex" and "decommission", while widely used by enthusiasts, are not well understood by Wikipedia's general audience. Instead of multiplex, use overlap, or merge (as in "the routes overlap/are merged", "the routes have an overlapped/merged section", or "Route X overlaps/is merged with Route Y"). Instead of decommission, you can use phrases such as "removed from the system", "stripped of its designation", or "the designation was removed".

[edit] What makes a full article?

Numbered highway articles that fall under this project should meet the requirements below to be considered full articles, for an example of a numbered highway article that meets these requirements, see Maryland Route 8. For other articles that fall under this project, such as streets, and bridges, just make sure the article covers a decent amount of information about the subject, and is well organized, for it to be considered a full article.

[edit] Routebox

Articles should contain an infobox containing info about the route (also known as a routebox). For state highways {{Infobox Maryland highway}} should be used, for U.S. highways, {{Infobox U.S. Route}}, should be used, and for interstates {{Infobox Interstate}} or {{Infobox Interstate/Intrastate}} should be used. See the template pages for instructions on how to use them, and see existing articles for examples of usage. The generic {{Infobox road}} should only be used in special cases, such as Delaware/Maryland Route 54 which is a state route that goes back and forth between Maryland and Delaware.

[edit] Structure

Sections below marked with "required" must appear in the article, likewise, sections that are conditionally required (such as the first two) must appear in the article if their conditions for inclusion are met. Other sections (marked with "optional") may or may not appear in the article. The sections should be listed in the following order:

(Introduction) (required, no heading)
An overview of the route.
Counties traversed (omitted if the route only traverses one county, required otherwise)
Lists counties traversed by the road and the lengths of the sections of the road through each county. Use the HLR on the project page to find the lengths. The {{convert}} template should be used to give conversions into kilometers and the HLR for the respective county should be linked for verification purposes.
Cities and towns (omitted if the route only passes through one city or town, required otherwise)
Major cities and towns that the road passes through. Only include incorporated cities and towns or communities that are not part of one (i.e. don't include individual neighborhoods of an incorporated city/town in this section). If there are more than 6 items in this list, split it into columns using the {{columns}} template with 5 items per column. Note, this means there should not be a list with one full column and a second column with only one item.
Route description (required)
A description of the route; where it goes and other notes about various parts of the road. The route should be described west-to-east or north-to-south.
History (optional)
The history of this route.
Junction list or Exit list (required)
Lists major intersections and interchanges along the road, including all junctions with signed numbered routes. See #Formatting junction list for how this section should be formatted.
Points of interest (optional)
Interesting/important places along the road.
(other sections) (optional)
As needed, to contain additional info. However, per WP:TRIVIA, sections along the lines of a "trivia" or "miscellanea" section should not be included. If an article has such a section, please remove non-notable items, add the rest into a relevant section, and put items that don't fit into any other section under "notes".
Related routes (optional)
A list of routes that are related to this one. (A spur or former alignment, letter-suffixed route, etc.)
Notes (optional)
Other facts about the route that cannot be worked into any other section, but are nonetheless worth mentioning, as well as footnotes. However, please do not use this section to add trivia items to the article.
See also, References/Sources, External links, etc.
Per usual usage, as needed.

Note: All lists (counties, cities, etc.), including routes junctioned in the route box, should list their items west-to-east or north-to-south, except for related routes, which lists the routes in numerical order. The rationale behind ordering north to south is that this ordering is more intuitive to the casual user, however, mile posts should still be measured from the southern terminus as usual (see below). The only exception is for North/South Interstate highways, which should have lists listed south to north per the Interstate project's guidelines.

[edit] Formatting junction list

All exit lists should be based on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (exit lists), so for consistency, all lists of junctions in general should also be based on this guidline. If you don't know how to create tables, see Help:Table. The table should include the following columns, from left to right:

County
The county the junction is in, since several adjacent entries will obviously be in the same county, use rowspan to merge the county cells for adjacent junctions in the same county.
Location
City/town/location near the junction, again use rowspan to merge cells that contain the same location.
Mile
Mile number (distance from southern or western terminus)
#
(written and linking to exit number as shown) The exit number for the junction, if the junction is not a numbered exit, leave it blank. If the route has no numbered exits, this column may be omitted entirely.
Destinations
The route junctioned and its destinations (see #Destinations below)
Notes
Any other note about the junction (ex: southern terminus, only signaled junction, etc.)

[edit] Destinations

Info in the destinations column should be formatted as <roads junctioned> - <destinations>

  • Roads junctioned should be separated by slashes (/) and should either be the name of the road (linked if applicable) or the shield followed by the route number with a piped link displaying the route abbreviation, for U.S. and Interstate highways link to the Maryland-specific page. Expamples: [[Maryland Route 8|MD 8]] [[U.S. Route 50 in Maryalnd|US 50]]
  • Destinations should be separated by commas (,) and should display the name of the location as it would appear on road signs, for example, Key Bridge, Annapolis. For places located in other states, only use the postal abbreviation of the other state if there is a relatively nearby location in Maryland that would cause confusion, for expample Richmond, Georgetown, DE.

[edit] What if it's not a full article?

Don't worry if you feel your article is too short, just tag it as a stub using an appropriate stub template (see below). If your article is long, but does not meet the standards given above, tag the talk page using the "attention" parameter in the wikiproject banner and place key rational in a to-do list. If you do one of these then other project members will be able to easily find your article and improve it if they can. If the route you plan on writing on isn't very notable and has very little information worth putting in its own article, consider listing it under List of minor Maryland state highways instead, but make sure you supply a redirect to the list from that route's name. Similarly, if the route has since been stripped of its state highway designation, it should be listed under List of former Maryland state highways, and a redirect from the route name should be created.

[edit] Stub templates

Here are the stub types used for this project

  • For Interstate X in Maryland stubs, use {{Interstate-stub}}, this looks like this:
This article relating to the Interstate Highway System is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
  • For U.S. Route X in Maryland stubs, use {{UShighway-stub}}, this looks like this:
This article relating to U.S. Highways is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
  • For stubs about any other road in Maryland use {{Maryland-road-stub}}, this looks like this:
 This Maryland road-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[edit] Other formatting guidelines

Some other things to keep in mind when editing articles that fall under this project.

[edit] Shields

Per Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Shields standards, shields appearing in a junction list or routebox should be 20 pixels in height. To achieve this, in general, shields for 1 or 2 digit routes should be 20 pixels wide and shields for 3-digit routes should be 25 pixels wide, with the only exception being the DC 295 shield which should be 16 pixels. Examples:

Interstate shields with the state name on them should not be used in routeboxes or small shield icons due to the fact that new Interstate shields posted by Maryland do not contain the state name. However, Maryland has used state-name shields before and many of them can still be seen. Because of this, a state-name shield should be included in the history section of a Maryland-specific Interstate article (see Interstate 95 in Maryland for an expample) along with a caption noting that it is an older style shield.

[edit] Other notes

  • Letter-suffixed routes should be merged with their parent article (under its route descrption section), redirects may be supplied to the main route from the letter-suffixed names. An example of such a merging is Maryland Route 648. An exception to this is if the letter-suffixed route is notable enough to have its own article, for example Interstate 895B (which redirects to the common designation: Interstate 895 Spur).
 This article is within the scope of the U.S. Roads WikiProject, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to roads in the United States. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Topics Roads in Maryland
NA This page is not an article and does not require a rating on the quality scale.

[edit] Need more info?

If you still have a question, don't hesitate to ask it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Roads in Maryland.