Maryland is using a sticky thread to report construction. Seems to work well.

My concern is that editing the wiki, no matter how easy, is still intimidating. Plus if no one is paying attention to a data item, the wiki quickly goes stale. Unless you can figure out a way to have the content be dynamic with sunset dates, my preference is still for the forum.

With forum threads dropping off the bottom, I don't see a problem with that as it is the natural order of data decay.

jondrush wrote:How do you do that the right way? I see i can be done automatically when I click on the state as a category.

I believe that's it. The text box gives you the option to add a bit of text a the top, but I'm not certain there's much to be added for category pages there other than a one-line summary. Just serves as a bit of a state page index. It won't save a non-redlink category page without at least a bit of text there, as I found out.

Got a start on the VA page at lunch yesterday, and a couple of our locals have started to get themselves into the AM table, as well. Thanks for the starter page last week!

jondrush wrote:I've created a wiki page for each state in the Northeast. See this page to find the link to your state http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:USA

I added a template to each page based on Illinois page, since I like the format and content. If you are comfortable with editing in a wiki, please update your state page.

-I replaced the word Illinois with xxxx throughout, so if you search on xxxx you should find all the instances that need to be customized for your state.
-Be sure to add a link back to your state forum
-Edit the link to your state Mapping Resources page or To-Do page if it exists

These pages are yours to modify as you wish. My strong recommendation is not to duplicate any content that already exists in the wiki. It is a waste of your time, and as national and global information changes, your page will be out of date. Create a link to the page instead. Only publish information that is local to your state and its unique situations.

Please post in this thread if you are volunteering to take on a State page. I can help you if you have any questions.

Count me in. I'll work on it for NJ. Thank you for the template.

AndyPoms wrote:

Riamus wrote:North Carolina has a Google Doc for tracking closures including both start and end dates, WME Permalink, link to an official source about the closure, road name, and notes. It works really well for both temporary and long term closures. The downside is that not everyone knows about the doc or has access to it. It may be valuable to have something like a Google Doc set up and then link to the document on the state's Wiki and forum with a note on how to be given access to edit it. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a history like you'd have on the Wiki if someone changes something. The benefit is that it is a nice spreadsheet format that is easy to edit for basically anyone without needing to learn how to edit the Wiki correctly (not that doing so is really all that difficult for most people).

This is almost exactly what we are doing in CT, but in the wiki - http://www.waze.com/wiki/Connecticut_Construction. This way, everyone has access to view & edit the document.

I've already created one here using the template from your CT page. Thanks for creating that page.
If everybody like to use this NJ page, I can put a sticky that's pointing to that link in NJ for all to see.

I think the Google Doc of maybe like a spreadsheet, linked with a sticky post on the state forum, of course, is probably the best way to go. This way you don't have to wade through all kinds of noise to figure out if a CONST ZN section has been reopened yet.

The wiki is definitely tough to edit without either being a programmer or using some kind of BYO tool. Not every state is going to have editors that are savvy at directly editing the text of the wiki page, especially when it comes to complex color highlighting and table layout formatting.

Spreadsheets can easily get overrun with expired information if someone doesn't regularly keep up with removing stale information. That is actually a very good point.

Sub forums do have options to hide older information, but can be difficult to organize and access larger amounts of data that comes in frequently. Would we be able to create further sub forums if the size of informational traffic called for it? Would editors actually find and use them (correctly) as the sub forums got more complex?

To go one step further, you could create a Google Form that is linked to spreadsheet. With the form, you can require some or all questions so a user cannot exclude important information.

Then all the data gets imported into a Google Spreadsheet and can be manipulated by authorized users. You can even look to add some scripts so depending on the closure type you would have the row highlighted to emphasize importance.

The form would essentially make submitting a construction project idiot proof and not have the need to PM the submitter for more information.

I think it ends up depending on how active the state forum is. If the forum isn't very active, it's pretty easy to track temporary closures there. However, if it is active, then you run into the situation AndyPoms mentioned, where the posts end up getting bumped off the first page and "lost."

North Carolina has a Google Doc for tracking closures including both start and end dates, WME Permalink, link to an official source about the closure, road name, and notes. It works really well for both temporary and long term closures. The downside is that not everyone knows about the doc or has access to it. It may be valuable to have something like a Google Doc set up and then link to the document on the state's Wiki and forum with a note on how to be given access to edit it. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a history like you'd have on the Wiki if someone changes something. The benefit is that it is a nice spreadsheet format that is easy to edit for basically anyone without needing to learn how to edit the Wiki correctly (not that doing so is really all that difficult for most people).

I like that CT page. It's nice and easy to see what is there. I'm wondering if there are plans to remove old closures, though. Maybe after a year? Otherwise, you'll eventually end up with a lot of re-opened rows. On a spreadsheet, that's minor, but when you're taking up as much space per item as the CT Wiki does, it becomes a bit much.

I agree that there is some intimidation for editing the Wiki. My question after thinking about it is this... How often do closures get posted by someone who isn't a regular editor or regular forum user? From what I've seen in the two states I watch, it's usually done by the most active users. And those users are the same type of people who are willing to put in the little bit of effort needed to update the Wiki page. It would be different if you regularly got random people posting a closure on the forum and then disappearing again. And if someone did that, a regular can still add it to the Wiki. *shrug*