Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/New York State Route 22/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 00:39, 29 July 2008 [1].

New York State Route 22[edit]

Nominator(s): Mitch32(UP)

I'm nominating this article for featured article because after months of work, I feel that is ready for the big time. This article was worked on in November 2007 by an Article Improvement Drive. It has been through review after review and is in my opinion, FA material. This, if passes would be WP:NYSR's 5th Featured Article, and our longest road to reach such a high level.Mitch32(UP) 13:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • A few comments from a skim:
    • There are a few reference issues: format=PDF is missing from refs that need it, you've got a retrieval date on a print source with no URL, and what is currently reference 27 is confusingly formatted. It appears to be using Wikipedia as a reference, although I don't believe that is your intention.
Done.Mitch32(UP) 00:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is it common for articles like this to rely on huge sections of text referenced only by Google Maps? I don't have a lot of experience with road articles. I wonder if everything is those sections is covered by that—"The border would be even closer to the highway had the neighboring Boston Corner area not been ceded to New York when local bandits used it as a refuge in the early 19th century." doesn't appear to be. I think these type of sections deserve a close look.
Google Maps normally gives a better range of detail than to paper maps and is usually considered a better reference. Paper maps are more used for the history section.Mitch32(UP) 00:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The article has a lot of red links. This isn't a per se problem—you don't have to go making stubs or anything—but it's worth checking whether all those links would make viable articles. If not, remove the link. If so, leave the red link and it's perfectly fine.
I have tried to reduce the redlinks by delinking several items ("horse country" and local malls) and by redirecting several other items that are closely related to another article. The redlinks left are basically named geographic bodies (mountains, lakes, rivers) that typically get an article, state facilities, historic places, and other notetworthy topics that I haven't found a place to redirect. --Polaron | Talk 20:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Non-breaking spaces have been added to route designations as well as units. --Polaron | Talk 15:34, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • This note worries me: "Mileage a rough estimate based on distance between this junction and nearest junction with known mileage, in this case the Thruway exit, as viewed at Google Maps." It sounds like you pulled up Google Maps, got out a ruler, and took a stab at a number. Could you fill me in a little on what this means exactly, and what makes it verifiable?
DoneMitch32(UP) 18:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
DoneMitch32(UP) 18:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The handy dabfinder tool shows you've got some links that need to be disambiguated.

Pagrashtak 15:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All links are now disambiguated except for Battle of Ticonderoga, which is meant to refer to the various battles at that specific locality and not just to a specific one. --Polaron | Talk 19:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still worry about the Google Maps issue. It's fine for all the "the roads bends west towards blah..." stuff, but I don't think everything in that section can be found on Google Maps. Who is the author of Image:Champlain1902.jpg, and when did he or she die? Pagrashtak 02:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Google Maps are fine as sources. Any bit of information in the route description can indeed be found on Google Maps. In fact, they're more detailed than a paper map by far. Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 18:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You're apparently not reading my comments. I have no problem with Google Maps being used as a source. I specifically mentioned that it's fine for the description of the road. Pagrashtak 05:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well then what is it exactly that you dislike about the Google Maps as a source? Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 12:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just went through the entire route description and checked if there is something being cited that is not found in Google Maps. The only instances I found where the addition of clarifying details within the route description such as the mention of White Plains being a county seat, or Scarsdale being a New York City suburb, etc. While not found in Google Maps, such information is not controversial and can be verified by clicking on the link. It would be an awkard construction to give a dry route description cited by Google Maps then provide details of the points of interest as separate sentences. Mixing in the details makes the prose flow more smoothly plus none of the clarifying details appears to be controversial in my view. --Polaron | Talk 18:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Juliancolton, as I mentioned in my original comment about it, I have a problem with statements like "The border would be even closer to the highway had the neighboring Boston Corner area not been ceded to New York when local bandits used it as a refuge in the early 19th century." (since removed) which cannot be verified by looking at a map. I wanted to make sure reviewers looked through that section to make sure nothing was unsupported.
Polaron, I agree that providing those details in the route description is the best way to go. However, sentences like the one above would need a source regardless of their placement. I'm not telling anyone to rearrange things, just make sure that a reference is added where needed. Thanks for taking a look through the section. Pagrashtak 18:42, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh that one has long been fixed and I did go through the route description within the last hour to check and made small adjustments to where the citation is placed. It is possible I missed some or there are facts that might be obvious to me but not to others. If you can point them out, I'll be glad to restructure the sentence and provide additional citations. --Polaron | Talk 18:54, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Current ref 1 (2007 NY State Dept of Transportation) has the publisher in the title link, needs to be outside the link.
Otherwise sources looked good, links checked out with the link checking tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done - Thanks!Mitch32(UP) 18:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment "almost 341 mi " and then "An 86-mile "; choose one format and stick with it. Happens throughout the entire article. Gary King (talk) 19:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done - All cases should now follow the first example given. Mitch32(UP) 22:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hold on. "At almost 341 mi (549 km) in total length..." is correct without the hyphen (although I have an issue with length—is someone confusing this with an extremely wide or tall road?) and "An 86 mi (138 km) section..." needs a hyphen, as it is a compound adjective. This isn't a consistency issue. Pagrashtak 02:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is fixed per Pagrashtak above. The second instance does require a hyphen. --Polaron | Talk 18:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Both of the images have been removed. I was unable to track down the source information for the first and the second one is indeed not related at all to the road. --Polaron | Talk 14:49, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I can't say I feel sufficiently familiar with (or, I'm afraid, inspired by) road articles to support actively. But it seems fine to me. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 11:41, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose—The writing holds promise, but needs a good scrub up before promotion. Someone new to the article needs to be brought in, and might well become a collaborator in future FA preps. Research similar articles and locate word-nerds from the edit summaries in the edit histories.

  • Opening sentence: "running north-sough parallel to the state's eastern edge"—oops. And an en dash, not a hyphen, since direction/movement is involved. There are similar hyphens further down. Isn't it a "border"?
  • MOS: no hyphen after "-ly". Look, try these exercises.
  • "The rural landscape off the road"—"off" is not right, at least not in formal prose. Just remove the last three words.
  • "the county seat of Westchester County"—why the repetition? Can't the first be removed? Tony (talk) 13:08, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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