AP_Red and VickiTori_ have been evaluating the list of A- and B-roads over the last few months, and they have compiled a suite of recommendations so that we can get everything into alignment with our road numbering guidelines. At the April 2023 GSM today, we approved the general plan for implementing these recommendations (though the exact list of what will be updated is subject to change based on community review and challenges).
Since this is a project that will impact a significant number of roads and towns, we want to make sure that everyone is aware of our proposed changes before we begin actioning them. Read on for details!
What’s the authority for this project?
This implementation plan has been approved under Most Important Rule 3, and staff have been given the authority to modify or remove signage on roads that are otherwise protected from changes. This means that even though B-roads belong to the towns they pass through (and are “public property” outside of town boundaries), staff will be making changes to those roads in order to complete the project.
What’s changing?
You can find our list of recommendations on this Google Spreadsheet.
- Roads that are largely incomplete or are entirely within one town will have their numbers removed. We won’t be destroying any roads that already exist, even if they’re stubs. However, the road numbers involved will be released and available for others to propose.
- Roads that are numbered incorrectly due to their significance or location will have their numbers changed.
- All roads with letters or punctuation in their numbers (except the leading “A” or “B”) will be renumbered to something that uses numbers only.
- We will do our best to update signage along a road that is having its number changed, along with any A- and B-roads that directly connect to an affected road. In most cases, we will not be changing signage on local roads within towns.
- If a road is renumbered, we will update the associated wiki content and Dynmap drawings. If a road is destined to be “decommissioned” (meaning having its number removed) or is unfinished, the Dynmap drawings will be removed, and the wiki content will be moved or deleted depending on the road and the state of its wiki page.
What you need to do
We would like to ask all members, especially those who have either built an A- or B-road or have one going through their towns, to please review the recommended actions spreadsheet as soon as you can (ideally before May 13, 2023).
If you have a road that you have an “ownership interest” in (meaning that you either built the road or it passes through a town where you’re the mayor), and you disagree with the recommended action, please create a thread in our #road-updates Discord channel explaining what you think is the correct action for your road and why you believe that to be the case.
- If you are not a member of our Discord server, you may send an email to the staff@ address.
- If you don’t see the channel, click Browse Channels at the top of the channel list, then check the box next to #road-proposals. Alternatively, the channel is linked from our recent post in #announcements.
Please do not create a thread or send an email about a road if you do not have an ownership interest in the road, or if you only want to clarify a note that we have on the spreadsheet. Additionally, if you agree with our recommended action, you can either implement it yourself or just sit tight until we come to you.
Challenges will be accepted on each road until we start working on it. That means that we’ll accept challenges for all roads until May 13, 2023, and after then we’ll only accept challenges for roads that we haven’t started working on updating. We will start off with any roads that will be losing their numbers (marked as “Unfinished” or “Decommissioning” on the spreadsheet), and our renumbering effort will follow afterwards. If you’d like to challenge a recommendation, do so sooner rather than later.
Project timeline
This is a lengthy project that will require a lot of staff members to help out. As such, we won’t prescribe a specific schedule for when we’ll get to a specific road. That said:
- We expect to work on the list of roads that will be losing their numbers in May and June.
- Roads that are destined to be renumbered will likely have those changes made later in the summer.
If you have any questions, please contact AP_Red, VickiTori_, or any other member of staff.
<3, Chief