Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Great Eastern Highway/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 promoted by Ian Rose 10:01, 13 March 2014 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Great Eastern Highway[edit]

Great Eastern Highway (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Nominator(s): Evad37 [talk] 02:52, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Great Eastern Highway, the 590-kilometre-long (370 mi) road from Perth to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, and the western section of the main road transportation link to the eastern states of Australia. The Perth end of the highway has been upgraded over the past couple of years, as has the article over the past few months, being listed as a good article in November and assessed as A-Class following an A-Class review. I am now nominating the article for FA as I believe it meets the criteria, and I look forward to your comments. - Evad37 [talk] 02:52, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are numerous intersections in Perth with other highways and main roads, including Canning Highway, Albany Highway, Graham Farmer Freeway, Tonkin Highway and Roe Highway. - there are alot of "highway"s in this sentence (and paragraph), I wonder if we could write like "There are numerous intersections in Perth with other highways and main roads, including Canning, Albany, Tonkin and Roe Highways, and Graham Farmer Freeway".
link Greenmount Hill, The Lakes, Midland, Roe Highway, Sawyers Hill, Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie, Guildford, Mundaring and Northam at first instance.
remove duplicate links (there are a few) - this script will identify them in articles if you don't already have it.

Otherwise looking tight and on-target for FA status I think. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:10, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed the issues you identified above. With the duplicate links, they only appeared once in the route description section, and once in the history section, both of which are relatively long – ie they wouldn't have been on the same screen view at the same time – which is something I've seen other articles at the A-class level do. But looking at WP:REPEATLINK, it does specificly say "only once", apart from the non-prose sections and the lead, so I did remove them. - Evad37 [talk] 01:54, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment How does flag and icon use fit with WP:MOSICON? I know road article editors like to use icons more than most people, but I gave up counting at 30-something decorative icons. The state and national flags on the templates at the bottom added to the effect. Would the article be worse if we toned down this decoration in line with MoS? Not saying I would outright oppose just for this, especially as otherwise the article looks in great shape. Just asking. --John (talk) 23:21, 21 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from route markers in tables, and next to portals and sister project links, which have large precedent/consensus, the only icons are in the navboxes. The icons in the navboxes' title bars provide visual cues to the reader: (1) The flag of Australia shows that "Perth" is the (major) one in Australia, as opposed to the other major usage, Perth, Scotland (2) The Western Australian flag symbolises Western Australia (3) The blank route markers represent road routes, which is important as there is limited public understanding/usage of what they are called. The WA flag on the other side provides some balance, while representing that these are road routes in Western Australia. In the expanded view of the first two navboxes, there is also a road icon image, which is perhaps not necessary, but not really any more so than the icons next to the portal links. Having such images is not unusual - there are image parameters in {{navbox}} (ie, they haven't been 'hacked in' against the design of that template). I'm not committed to having the 9 navbox icons, but that's the explanation. - Evad37 [talk] 01:56, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I got rid of the ones in the templates, but that still leaves 43, not counting the Portal symbols and the many on the maps. Do we really need this many? If this is a project consensus, where was it achieved and does it really supersede the MoS, which is a requirement for FA? --John (talk) 11:22, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't just project consensus – there is precedent based on just about every road FA, which have been promoted with the same system of using route marker icons in the infobox and RJL table (there's more than 60 USRD FAs and some others - Kwinana Freeway at least, maybe some UK ones). Also, the consensus on icons in the road junction list table is documented in the the section of the MOS on road junction lists. MOS:RJL#Text_appearance discusses how icons are to be used, and there are icons used in the examples at the bottom of that page. - Evad37 [talk] 16:19, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As for the total number, that is just a consequence of using the icons in a consistent logical manner – long roads have lots of intersections, some roads have multiple road routes. Is there any specific usage you are concerned about, or is it just the total number? - 16:36, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Newspaper citations are quite inconsistent in presentation: compare for example FNs 1 and 30. Pick one style and stick to it
  • Be consistent in when you include locations and how you format these. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:36, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comments, I will look at fixing up the newspaper cites, but this might not be till the weekend as I am now busy in "real life" - Evad37 [talk] 02:03, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: I have adjusted the newspaper cites to a consistent format. - Evad37 [talk] 01:33, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support (having come from my own Australian FAC).

  • In the opening sentence, I think it would be more natural to see it written as "is a 590 kilometre (370 mile) road..." First, mile should be written out on the first instance. Second, I don't think the dash is needed (nor is the "long").
  • "it is the western portion of the main road transportation link " - I think the "transportation" here is redundant. Roads aren't often used for things other than transportation.
  • "Though planning began in the 1970s, as of 2012, there are no plans to construct this route." - any update on this? It's 2014 now.
  • "The Causeway, a river crossing into Perth's central business district" - this implies that The Causeway is a river, which the article linked denies. Please make this clearer.
  • Why do you abbreviate mph but not km/h? Ditto km/mi
  • "The Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail is a tourist drive alongside the pipeline, with large sections following Great Eastern Highway" - large sections of what?
  • "Sections of Great Eastern Highway are allocated various road routes" - grammar?
  • I don't understand why your refs look like this - [6]:36
  • Anytime you have an acronym, you should spell it out the first time, such as in "although the RAC still..."
  • "After 4.6 kilometres (2.9 mi), Great Eastern Highway interchanges with Tonkin Highway, which connects to Perth's north-eastern and south-eastern suburbs, and Brearley Avenue, which provides access to Perth Airport's domestic terminals" - don't use "which" twice in the same sentence.
  • "traffic light controlled fork " - feel like a dash should be in there.
  • "After 800 metres (2,600 ft), that road terminates at a T junction, just south of the Midland railway line." - I'm confused what "that" road is. I thought it was Great Eastern, but it says it terminates, so I think it could be clearer.
  • "continuing named as East Street" - rm "named"
  • "well known" - add dash
  • You should indicate somewhere that all currency figures are in Australian dollars
  • The history section seems pretty decent.

♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:02, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks also for your comments. Per above, real life is now busy, but some things I can quickly answer:
  • "Though planning began in the 1970s..." – While there's probably been no change, I haven't find any information to reliably say one or the other since 2012.
  • ...refs look like this - [6]:36 – It's a way of reusing the same ref with different pages numbers, ie ref [6], page 36. See Template:Rp
  • "Sections of Great Eastern Highway are allocated various road routes" - grammar? – Can you clarify what is wrong, or what wording you would prefer?
More to come later. - Evad37 [talk] 00:09, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the reply. I'm only worried about the third one. It seems like a word is missing, such as "among" after "allocated". ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 05:30, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't been able to think of an appropriate word to add here "among" doesn't really seem like the opposite of "to" - if reversed, the sentence could be "Various road routes are allocated to sections of Great Eastern Highway ..." - so do you think it's better to reverse the order, or come up with a better missing word? - Evad37 [talk] 02:08, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yea, that makes much more sense with the "allocated to sections". ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:08, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Some more responses:
  • "In the opening sentence ... First, mile should be written out on the first instance" – per WP:MOS#Abbreviations, "Make an exception for very common abbreviations; in most articles they require no expansion"
  • But kilometre is written out, so mile should as well. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:08, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry, where in the MOS does it say this? I certainly can't see anything about this in MOS:UNIT - Evad37 [talk] 00:06, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"... Second, I don't think the dash is needed" – the dash is used, by {{convert}}, when the measurement is in adjective form
"(nor is the "long")" – In this case, I actually think it does sound better, especially when read aloud. I previously went through and removed some of the "-long"s [2]
  • I just think it sounds weird saying "590 kilometre long, 370 mile", as if the mile bit is an afterthought. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:08, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Technically, it is an afterthought. Per MOS:CONVERSIONS, kilometres are the primary unit, and miles are only given so that more readers understand the quantity. Someone familiar with the metric system can just skip the brackets, while those familiar with imperial/US units can substitute the mile value into the sentence. - Evad37 [talk] 00:06, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "it is the western portion of ..." – removed the word transportation
  • "The Causeway, a river crossing into" – reworded so that it is clear that river crossing means river crossing (can't wikilink in article as that's a dab page)
  • Eh, it still sounds like a waterway. Are you opposed to calling it a "bridge"? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:08, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, its actually not "a bridge". It is a bridge, followed by an island, and then a second bridge. - Evad37 [talk] 00:06, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""The Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail is a ... – clarified that it's large sections of the trail (also true for the pipeline, but that's not the subject of that sentence)
- Evad37 [talk] 02:09, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why do you abbreviate mph but not km/h? Ditto km/mi – kilometre is spelled out as part of the prose, while mi is just a conversion in parenthesis – per the MOS:UNIT examples. Since kilometre per hour was used repeatedly in two adjacent sentences, I changed all but the first to symbols per the first point of WP:UNITS#Conventions.
  • Anytime you have an acronym, you should spell it out the first time, such as in "although the RAC still..." – Done. Annoying, though, as the non-acronym version is very verbose, and isn't in common usage at all - everyone, including themselves, just uses RAC. Still, the MOS is the MOS.
  • ... don't use "which" twice in the same sentence. – Changed.
  • "traffic light controlled fork " - feel like a dash should be in there. A google scholar search [3] shows there is mixed usage amongst academic sources. Some use "traffic light controlled", others use "traffic light-controlled", "traffic-light-controlled", or "traffic-light controlled".
  • "After 800 metres (2,600 ft), that road terminates at a T junction, just south of the Midland railway line." - I'm confused what "that" road is ... – Clarified that it is Johnson Street that terminates.
  • "continuing named as East Street" - rm "named" – Done
  • "well known" - add dash – Done
  • You should indicate somewhere that all currency figures are in Australian dollars – linked the first $ to Australian dollar
  • The history section seems pretty decent. – Thank you
I think that's all the issues you pointed out, let me know if I missed anything - Evad37 [talk] 02:15, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, it's been a busy few days, but looks good to me now! :) ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 05:02, 9 March 2014 (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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