Template talk:Interstates

Making N-S and E-W Interstates Clearer

In the Interstate System, the N-S highway designations are odd numbers (1, 3, 5, etc.) and the E-W designations use even numbers (2, 4, 6), etc. It would be helpful in addition to highlighting the major highways if the Odd and Even numbers were broken out from each other. By breaking this down better, it should help folks find their highway faster by reducing the sifting of irrelevancies. -- Srwalden (talk) 14:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I believe this proposal is valid and adds a meaningful split to the list without introducing unnecessary complexity. I am willing to make the edit shortly, seeing as there hasn't been enough interest in nearly four years in dissenting to this proposal. Previous attempts to edit the list seem to have been reverted due to the attempts making more granular highway splits based on major-minor distinctions, and this proposal does not affect the way major highways are displayed, so I don't see this proposal being at odds with that. Tklalmighty (talk) 01:51, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually, it isn't really needed. You have enough diagonals where you have to decide is I-26 really east–west even though it's more north–south, etc. Imzadi 1979 → 01:58, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Considering all the interstates are signed specifically as E-W or N-S, I don't see how there's ambiguity there. For example, I-85, despite being decidedly NE-to-SW in its route, is very unambiguously signed N-S through its entire length. If we claim ambiguity for highways like I-85 and I-26, it's a slippery slope to claiming ambiguity for any highway that doesn't go due N-S or due E-W.

Now I see you reverted the edit. When was the split list actually done before, in the way that we've done it? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen a single past edit that does it in the way we did it. The previous edit I believe you may be citing also only splits out major highways, which I think we all agree is sufficiently denoted with the highlights, and it did not do a sufficiently good job of denoting which highways are N-S and which ones are E-W.

Having the distinction between E-W and N-S highways is valuable in that presents the highways in the two intuitive lists in which they present in the real world, one consisting of generally north-south odd-numbered highways, generally progressing from west to east; and another consisting of generally east-west even-numbered highways, generally progressing from south to north. Given the sources present in Interstate Highway System, it is also worth noting that this is not an arbitrary split; this is, in fact, the intended motive behind the numbering system.

Further, why is the reverted one list that merges the E-W and N-S highways better? The problem I see with the list in its unified form is that it forces readers who may be looking for highways signed as N-S (or, as a more specific example, for adjacent N-S highways to the one they are currently reading) to discern which among all highways is actually N-S. One can obviously do that programmatically based on the highway number, but that is extra brainwork and requires prior knowledge of how the interstates are numbered. To readers who don't even know about that distinction, having a single list unnecessarily obfuscates that tangible detail, without providing any hint. At risk of putting words in @Srwalden's mouth, I think we're both seeing that extra brainwork as a sign of an insufficiently organized list. Tklalmighty (talk) 03:15, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

If such organization were truly superior, why is List of Interstate Highways not separated as such? I think you overstate the distinction, and I don't think it's really as necessary as you think. Imzadi 1979 → 03:26, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I'm overstating the distinction. After all, it's even described in the opening paragraph of the page you linked. It's also described in greater detail on the main Interstate Highway System page. It's relevant, and I don't see any reason why it isn't a useful addition and improvement to the template.

FWIW, I'd be for adding a column on that list to indicate the highway's signed direction too. Tklalmighty (talk) 03:44, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Fun thing: H-1 and H-3 are signed east–west, and H-2 is signed north–south. In any case, I just don't think that the navbox is the right place for that, and I'd oppose the addition of that column. Imzadi 1979 → 04:05, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I got that one correct in my edit to the template.

Again, it's one of those things where the extra context is unnecessarily implicit, and requires only a reasonably low lift to highlight. Maybe I've missed it, but I've still yet to see any justification for why the status quo is the better of the two options. To wit, if E-W and N-S is not relevant enough for the navbox, then why aren't major-minor distinctions not relevant enough for highlighting in the navbox? The fact that the relatively short I-45 is considered "major" seems less pertinent to the average reader's usage of the navbox than the fact that there is a general pattern in the numbering of the highways.

Barring further dissent from others, I don't see why we shouldn't move forward. Tklalmighty (talk) 04:31, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

With a template like this - it is best to discuss and to not barge ahead with changes as there has been years (over a decade) of discussion and the way it stands right now is as a result of that. Personally I am opposed because if one doesn't know if a route is east or west, then they may have to look on both lists. --Rschen7754 04:36, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:BRD I don't think attempting the change made was problematic, and one could argue per WP:ROWN that the edit was not worthy of reversion in the first place. I fail to see any previous discussion here on why this proposal doesn't work. I only saw a proposal here from @Srwalden which I agreed with, one I had also independently been thinking about from my own browsing, and one that appeared to go without dissent here for nearly four years; and to that end I made a small and targeted change to the template that I believe improves the organization on the template without any significantly substantial tradeoff. It's also the only substantial comment made here in about a decade, so I'm not sure I agree that the presentation of the template has adequately been tested.

Further, please show me how I'm wrong here, but this edit is substantially different from any of the previous attempts to improve this template; most previous attempts seemed more concerned with the visual representation of the lists of highways (i.e. grid vs. table) than how to intuitively split the highways into lists in the first place; while the rest of them deal more directly with the major-minor interstate distinction, the presentation of which I do not touch in my change.

As to your concern over the organization, I'm not sure I see the tradeoff of the reader not seeing their desired highway on the first row as outweighing the tradeoff of the reader potentially being unaware of such a fundamental differentiation when working through the navbox in the first place. If that were the case, then you could, for instance, reason a parallel argument that the teams on Template:NFL should be sorted alphabetically and not grouped by division and conference. Tklalmighty (talk) 22:59, 3 April 2022 (UTC)