Template talk:Sign of road

Added value?

This template looks very complicated just to create an embedded file image name and size. Some suggestions: Would be better if just need to input country and road number and possibly type of road (or just the Wikidata object number of the road), template then looks up via Wikidata the traffic sign image and places a hyperlink on it, the Wikivoyage page if it exists, the Wikipedia page if not. --Traveler100 (talk) 10:01, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Sashabrava: Take a look at Template:Sign of road/sandbox. --Traveler100 (talk) 14:18, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

There will be an issue with giving wikivoyage links on roads - since there aren't so many pages with roads on wikivoyage. search link. Plus there is an issue with naming - links on E39 and E45 look differently, and it will be hard to make a common template for them.

@Traveler100: Please, take a look at Wikipedia road signs template. Wikipedia seem to have issues with displaying roads by countries as well (otherwise why didn't they make more elegant template?). As far as I understood, there is an order among the links on road signs pictures, that's why I decided to start from them.

However, your idea sounds good in long-term - yet I don't have a clear idea how to make 100% trustworthy search of Wikidata code). For example - there can be French road A1 and Polish A1. And there is no clear field "A1" on wikidata to make an easy search by country.

Ah, and I'd also offer you to take a look on ru.wikivoyage.org road tempalte - Russian template - they made a simple span element there, maybe there can be a piece of advice given for them. --Sashabrava (talk) 15:08, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Some conclusion - what do you think about using this template "as it is", and later changing it to use Wikidata after we find a solution for a search? Cause current syntax {{European road|RU|M|10}} wouldn't change for users in the future - we need only: 1. Country, 2. Road type, 3. Road number

The code in the sandbox example does not depend on the name of the Wikipedia page and handle whether there is a Wikivoyage page. All the user of the template needs to do is go to Wikipedia for the road, press on the Wikidata item link in the left side bar and use the Q number of that page. I suspect the ridiculously complicated templates on Wikipedia are due to the fact they were started before Wikidata was available. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:03, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Traveler100:I got your point. Still, if there is no Wikipedia article for road, it's relatively hard to get a Wikidata code - and most of users won't do it because of complexity. Plus not everybody knows about "Wikidata item" button on Wikipedia page.

That's why I support your first idea - to make a search of the road by country and its number. Anyway, can't we make Wikidata code an optional parameter? If it's filled in, we give a link on Wiki article and make preview. If not - okay, there will be just a road sign. Plus it can be good for future - we give user an option to change Wikidata link manually, if search algorithm makes an error.

But the current code still relies on the user find the name of the road sign image file, if no Wikipedia page then have to search Commons, just as easy to search wikidata. Will add some more help text to the sandbox version. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:38, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Traveler100:Okay, if you can make it working stable - let it be so. However, the template {{European road|FR|A|3}} is fine, right? I ask whether it makes sense to continue adding it on various pages in its current shape - so that in the future it will rely on your sandbox template (by searching Wikidata code itself). Or you still want users to add roads manually as {Sign of road|Q54725}?

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@Sashabrava, Traveler100: Allow me to slide into this discussion. When making {{Rint}}, I figured I'd plan ahead and I started work on RINTroad. The consensus for {{Rint}} was that no imagery would be used, as these take away too much from the content of the article. I'm pretty sure that if put up for discussion, the same outcome would be reached here. Everything in RINT and RINTroad (title work in progress) is created using {{RbE}}, which consists of two spans. Development on RINTroad has stopped from my side, but I wouldn't be opposed to restarting that. Everything for Europe is already in place, the same goes for Canada. That being said, RINTroad isn't intended for usage in the article itself, but is intended to work inside of {{Routebox}}. I'm not sure that using it inline would be beneficial seen the result in detailed 'Get in' paragraphs becomes overwhelming. I'm in favour of continuing work on RINTroad rather than making a tonne of templates that inject distracting imagery into the text, but I'm sure we can debate on that a bit if necessary. I'm just letting you all know that something like this already exists.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 16:58, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Wow lot of nice work there. I remember some of the rail discussion, (in fact I think I was also concerned about too many icons on the page) must have missed the bit on the road icons. Looks like most of the work is done there. Only thing with this method though is that you have to keep working on the code to cover every country and road type, with the wikidata qid method, the code is done and you can rely on others to build up the data. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:12, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Traveler100: You're not wrong about RINT templates requiring a lot of work to set up in the first place, but the end result is in my opinion worth it. A large advantage over fetching from WD, WP and Commons is that as soon as a series of road shields is missing, which inevitably will happen at some point, it's much easier to add a few new lines to the template instead of drawing the SVG code for the shield and bulk-uploading that to Commons. Besides, I'm in favour of the unified-look concept, but that does require the thousands of Routeboxes that already exist to be updated (and Routebox needs to support RINT templates in the first place, but all of that can be sorted out in due time). Fetching images has the advantage of most of the work already being done, true, but as {{Rint}} has proven to some extend, if you create the basis, others will tag along to help. They may not be many, but a few is all that are needed. If documentation on the template is done properly and most of all can be understood by new editors, then you're lowering the bar required to start editing the template a lot. At that point, anyone can drop out of developing the template for others to pick up where they left.

As for the discussions on RINT, I couldn't find the message with which it all started, which pointed out the use of imagery, but documentation can be found on my talkpage, on RouteBox (pre-RINT RINT), Station and RbE's talk pages, should anyone need to read up on it all.