Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Interstate 69 in Michigan/archive1


 * 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 promoted by Ian Rose (talk) 01:54, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 69 in Michigan

 * Nominator(s):  Imzadi 1979  →   05:07, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

This the third of Michigan's four mainline Interstate Highways, and it's also the only state section of Interstate 69 that's complete in the US now that the highway is being extended to Mexico.The article has undergone expansing to fill it out before a GAN and an ACR in the last year. With any necessary minor adjustments, it should be good to go for the bronze star.  Imzadi 1979  →   05:07, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support I thoroughly reviewed the prose for grammar, spelling, flow and consistency at ACR. In addition, I requested several things to clarify the history, all of which were delivered. Most important to me is the map that is currently the third image in the history section, which provides a quick visual reference to the technical and detailed synopsis alongside. I requested this map with a pending support at ACR, and am pleased to see it in place. Despite being a WP:HWY member, I wish to emphasize an "external" support for how well this article informs me of the relevant geographical information without even requiring an external map. Very few geographical articles can achieve this so comprehensively, which is why I have taken the time to write this extended support. -  Floydian  τ ¢  06:00, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support - I reviewed this article at ACR and believe that it meets all the FA criteria.  Dough 48  72  04:38, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support. Excellent page, meets all the FA criteria. --Carioca (talk) 19:48, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Image check - all OK
 * images are CC "own work", verified via OTRS, PD-USGov or various forms of PD-age - OK.
 * sources and authors provided - OK.
 * map information includes source data - OK. GermanJoe (talk) 02:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Support. Having stumbled here from my FAC, I thought I'd comment, as I usually do for Michigan FAC's now :) All in all a good read! I'll be happy to support after these comments are addressed. Cheers. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 15:30, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) " future Interstate" - I understand when you say "Interstate Highway System", that the first word is capitalized, but when you use it as a synonym for highway, I don't think it should be capitalized
 * 2) "The first freeway segment given the I-69 designation opened in 1967" - I think this could be written better as "The first freeway segment designated as I-69 opened in 1967." Makes it cleaner.
 * 3) "I-69 is listed on the National Highway System (NHS) for its entire length.[4] The NHS is a network of roadways important to the country's economy, defense, and mobility." - I know you use this for most interstates, but would you be opposed to having something like - "The entirety of I-69 is listed on the National Highway System (NHS), which is a network..." That way it's just one sentence.
 * 4) "; the highest and lowest traffic counts in 2012, respectively" - not sure a semicolon is appropriate here. I think a dash is better, but it could just be a regular comma.
 * 5) "The freeway intersects the northern end of the business loop immediately east of downtown at an interchange that also features US 12 (Chicago Road)." - I feel like this sentence could be cleaner by shifting it around. "Immediately east of downtown, the freeway intersects the northern end of the business loop at an interchange that also features US 12 (Chicago Road)."
 * 6) "Further north" - any time it's distance or location, it should be "farther"
 * 7) " the freeway curves around to the northwest" - curves around what?
 * 8) The text is a bit squished... could you remove one of the pictures of the road from the road in the route description? The bridge and the aerial view ones are great, but the ones from the car don't add enough to warrant having two. I also don't think the Indian trail one is needed. JMHO
 * 9) Why no link for Highway 402 in the route description? Most others are linked.

I apologize that I missed your comments the other day when you posted them. I think they got lost on my watchlist in a flurry of poor editing I needed to revert to dozens of other Michigan highway articles that day. In any case, I switched your bullets for numbers so that I could reply here to specific points. Anything not called out below has just been fixed as suggested, or substantially similarly.
 * 1. I disagree, and the capitalization is actually important in this case. An interstate highway (lower case) merely crosses state lines, and U.S. Route 27 would meet that definition. By capitalizing it, we are specifying that it is a component of the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways, aka the Interstate Highway System. I would also note that not all Interstates are interstate in character. (Interstate 96 would like to say hello.)
 * 8. I tried viewing the page at several different window widths, and I'm not getting any squishing of text. The exception is the text to the left of the 1957 map in the History section at narrower widths, but that's only to be expected with a map that needs to be forced wider to stay legible. As for removing the Indian trails map, I can do that once I find a replacement. (I prefer to have at least one image or illustration per subsection of article to avoid turning the page it a wall of unillustrated text.)

As always, I appreciate the review.  Imzadi 1979  →   04:44, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * map swapped out with one from 1919 showing the route of the original M-29, another of I-69's predecessors.  Imzadi 1979  →   07:01, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thanks for the replies. I'm happy to support now. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 00:46, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Source review by Tezero
Only fair since I've asked for an image and source review for my FAC as well.
 * 2 and 73: consider delinking red links
 * I hate to ask, but is Google Maps a reliable source?
 * Is there some kind of directory (Google Books-style) you can link to for the maps? So little information about them is provided - even though I trust they say what you've attributed to them, the reader mightn't.
 * Spotchecks:
 * 30: good
 * 61: good, but why does the citation say "p. 1" if it's numbered "538"?
 * 69: good - "newly opened" in first paragraph
 * 79: good
 * 59: good - it's weird for them to write it "n0n-chargeable"...

Tezero (talk) 16:19, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Replies to :
 * Redlinks aren't a bad thing.
 * I know they're not forbidden; I just find them unseemly and many editors simply don't realize they're there, that's all. Tezero (talk) 01:00, 13 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is, especially in how it is used in this article. Google Maps is being used for the aerial/satellite view, and it's paired with the official MDOT map. That official map gives carries the imprimatur of the government agency that maintains the road, and it has the full routing, but it lacks details that can be found in the aerial/satellite imagery conveniently provided through Google Maps.
 * No, there isn't, and we don't require sources to be located online for our use. Where they are not, we expect readers to consult physical libraries. The Library of Michigan has a full archive of the maps, and the few they don't have are a couple of blocks away at the MDOT Library. There are other libraries that archive them as well. (I'd also note that our policy only requires the information to be verifiable, not verified.)
 * I know we don't require it; it just seems like a very small amount of information to give a reader considering how onerous the sources would be to find. Tezero (talk) 01:00, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Just one quick comment, but spotchecks and source reviews are somewhat separate concepts. While it never hurts to spotcheck sources, that's not what a source review entails. Rather, a source review is just to evaluate the formatting (consistency) and reliability of the sources cited. As for a spot check, that was also done in the ACR for this article earlier this year as required for promotion in that process.  Imzadi 1979  →   05:38, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
 * As for footnote 61, "p. 1" refers to the individual agenda/minutes. The "538" is a hand-written number that means that specific document started on the 538th page in a single binder, but the individual documents were separated when AASHTO uploaded them on their website. If a reader were to consult a copy of the document obtained from elsewhere, that "538" would be absent as it is not a part of the original document.
 * The FAC coordinators won't necessarily know that a spotcheck has already been done if it's in a separate page and you haven't linked it. Tezero (talk) 01:00, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

I suppose I can support, then, if what you say of all of these sources is true. Tezero (talk) 01:00, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Closing comment -- Tks Tezero for that review. Yes, the "source review" is for formatting and reliability while the "source spotcheck" means randomly choosing a few of the article's references and making sure they're used accurately and without plagiarism or close paraphrasing. In this case I was happy to just see the former review, which means I think we can close this now. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:53, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 01:54, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.