Talk:Texas Park Road 3/GA1

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GA Review[edit]

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Reviewer: Imzadi1979 (talk · contribs) 07:28, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

Some comments below the checklist will contain suggested changes that exceed what the GA criteria call for at a minimum, however I feel that they at least warrant consideration to improve the quality of the article or to bring it in line with how other Good Articles on state highways are formatted/written for greater consistency.

  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
    See below for specific prose-related comments.
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
    In terms of referencing, all are reliable sources, however a few minor adjustments are in order to clarify things. See below.
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
    Looks good
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
    Also good here.
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
    No sign of any edit-wars and nothing that would make this subject "rapidly changing" and unstable.
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
    There's a caption-related suggestion below, but not something that would impede promotion
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:
    Lots of minor comments, and they're all easily fixed. The article is overall in very good shape. I've explained why I'm making suggestions in some detail, and some of the reasoning comes from my experiences in taking articles past GAN to ACR and FAC. The idea I'm hoping that you learn from some of this is to improve editing skills and habits, even on these short articles, so that when you decide to tackle something worthy of further advancement, you won't need to re-learn as much of your skill set in terms of writing or formatting. Imzadi 1979 → 09:22, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Lead comments
  1. TxDOT does not include the state name ("Texas") in the official name of the highway. You can see that this is so in the title of the designation file: "Highway Designation File – Park Road No. 3". That's why the top of the infobox automatically generates the name as "Park Road 3", which is how you should also spell out the full names for consistency. The article may be titled "Texas Park Road 3", but the literal name given to a title does not have to match the first sentence of an article, or else M-6 (Michigan highway), and the others titled like it, are missing some parenthetical disambiguators in their prose.
  2. Please unlink "U.S. state" in the first sentence. It's there to help explain to non-American readers that this road is in the United States, but it's a low-value link; the value is in the link to Texas. (A stricter opinion of the concept of only linking to links of specific value would have you unlink "Texas" to help steer a reader to the "Fort Davis, Texas" article.)
  3. See #1 in this section, but you should pipe the link to "Texas State Highway 118" as just "State Highway 118" for the same reasons. Also, you need the "(SH 118)" afterwards to introduce that abbreviation convention to readers so that when they see the designation abbreviated in the Route description section, the infobox or the junction list table, they know what it means. To omit it isn't a good writing practice, especially given the relative distances between the first and subsequent uses.
 Done with lead comments
History comments
  1. won't tell you that you have to flip the history section to follow second, which is the usual practice in USRD articles, because the Texas project page says to put it first, and USRD's standards allow either order. That's up to the editors behind each article to figure out.
  2. What's "TxDOT"? (Yes, I know what it is, but Gerhard in Germany or Pierre in France probably won't.) You used the abbreviation on the first mention of the department both without the full name and without a link. This department's name should be spelled out in full with a link and the abbreviation listed in parentheses afterwards.
  3. Is "Davis Mountains State Park Highway" a proper noun, or a descriptive term for a highway in a specific state park? If it's not a proper noun, then the word "highway" should not be capitalized.
Yes, this is a proper name confirmed both by the citation given and also by a notation at the bottom of the SH 166 Highway Designation File. The route was designated by an act of the Texas Legislature over the objection of the highway department according to another source I have available. The details, however, would be more appropriate for the SH 166 article when I get around to working on that further. Fortguy (talk) 19:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Done with history comments
Route description comments
  1. Drop the footnote to the length of the highway from the middle of the first sentence. Since TxDOT doesn't provide you with a proper source to derive or obtain mileposts for intermediate junctions to the same level of precision as the overall length, you've using Google Maps for mileposts. The entire paragraph can be cited to the park map and Google Maps with a pair of footnotes at the end of the last sentence alone.
    1. The implication of having the park map (fn 6) in the middle of a sentence like that is that everything before between it and the last footnote is cited to it and it only.
    2. If you move the park map and Google Map citation to the end of the paragraph, then everything in this section can be attributed to either source, which is generally the case with highway articles. (We should be consulting multiple maps in crafting RD sections because of the known level of error potential in the various online mapping services.)
  2. Given the level of precision at work here, you may or may not want to gloss the "0.5 miles (0.8 km)" as "half mile (0.8 km)". To do that, you'll need to manually insert and format the conversion with the non-breaking space   between the number and unit label, but it could produce better flowing prose. (The conversion templates are good at what they do, but well-written prose is even better.)
  3. Now you're going to see me write something that might seem out of place in terms of WP:USRD/STDS, but I'm invoking WP:IAR to do so: you may want to flip the text description of the roadway backwards. Write it from east to west so that it flows from the connection with the rest of the state highway system into the park. If you do, leave the mileposts flowing west-to-east. Strict adherence to the west-to-east and south-to-north order of things, especially on shorter highways like this does not always produce the best written results.
 Done with route description comments
Major intersections comments
  1. Per MOS:RJL, if all of the junctions along a highway are in the same county, we drop the county column and insert the note above the table as you did. In addition, if all of the junctions are in the same location (city/village/township/etc), we drop the location column and add the location to the note above the table, which isn't the case here. Since {{jcttop}} doesn't handle special locations, you'll have to do it manually, like I did the table on M-185.
    1. In front of the jcttop template, add The entire highway is in the [[Davis Mountains State Park]], [[Jeff Davis County, Texas|Jeff Davis County]]. This is your custom table note.
    2. In the jcttop template add |nocty=yes to shut off the county column and |location=none to shut off the location column.
    3. Remove the |state=TX |county=Jeff Davis from jcttop (no longer needed) and the |location_special=Davis Mountains State Park |lspan=3 from the first line of the table in jctint (also no longer needed).
  2. If you're flipping the RD's direction order, you'll also need to invert the table to run backwards for consistency (and reverse the infobox), but leave the milepost numbers alone. In other words, the table will start with 1.2 at the top and 0.0 at the bottom.
  3. Please, no matter what else you do, make the one milepost 0.0 so that it has the same level of precision as the others, in this case, one decimal place. Anything else looks sloppy and lazy. (The only time the precision should vary is if the mileposts come from different sources with different levels of precision, like when WisDOT uses 2 DPs compared to 3 DPs from Mn/DOT and MDOT in the case of U.S. Route 8.)
 Done with major intersections comments
Park Road 3A comments
  1. See #1 from the Lead comments as it applies here.
  2. "2.8 miles (4.5 km) long suffixed route" should be 2.8-mile-long (4.5 km) suffixed route". To do that, add |adj=mid|-long in the conversion template and drop the word "long" after it. This sentence construction is using the distance as an adjective to modify "suffixed route", and since the word long is used, it's part of the compound adjective and should be hyphenated in as well. (That's what the "mid" type does is allow you to insert the rest of the compound adjective into the middle of the conversion, so long as you specify it.)
  3. "of Park Road 3" should use the PR 3 abbreviation for consistency. The abbreviation convention has already been introduced and reintroduced here, so use it!
  4. Unlike what I said above, this time, I would leave the description direction alone as you have the prose flowing from the only state highway connection PR 3A has to its "dangling" terminus.
  5. Again, you don't need to specifically cite the length if your sources at the end of the paragraph also include it.
  6. Just like the Major intersection comments above. the table should have its location column removed. When you do so, make sure to insert a carriage return as needed after the pseudo header so that your table note isn't included in boldface text.
  7. Add |nolink1=yes to the {{jct}} to unlink PR 3 in the table. Since it's linking to this same article, the servers render the link in boldface, but that's not something we want here.
  8. You may want to generate a Google Maps set of directions just for PR 3A and cite it. (If you do, unlink the publisher using the |link= no option in the template for the second citation.) Certainly optional, and just food for thought.
  9. "Shield of Park Road 3A" as a caption sounds wrong to me.
    1. I know that the roadgeek tendency is to call them all "shields", but only the reassurance markers for Interstates and US Highways in the US are shield-shaped. (The US Highway marker uses the same shield shape used in the Great Seal of the United States.) The better term, which is what the MUTCD uses, is "marker" or "route marker". (Since Texas doesn't have "routes" but has "highways", I wouldn't use "route" in the caption here._
    2. Second, the "of" preposition is what makes it so awkwardly worded; a "for" would be better. Combined with the other comment, I'd change the caption to read "Marker for PR 3A", using the abbreviation convention specified in the text of the article.
 Done with Park Road 3A comments
External links
 Done with external links
References

The numbers will correspond to the footnote numbers as they appeared when I reviewed the article.

  1. Looks good.
  2. I'd add |author= Staff since this is a corporately authored work. I would also remove the link from the |work= field because it actually breaks part of the citation template. The templates code metadata that outputs the information in a machine-readable format in the HTML coding that your web browser loads. By linking it like you did, you just told computer programs reading that metadata that the work, or the website name in this case, is [http://texascccparks.org/ The Look of Nature: Designing Texas State Parks During the Great Depression]. (I've been known to separately link the chapters and overall book using {{cite book}} for citations to online editions of books, but this is a plain website, so that's not needed at all.)
  3. I would reformat this as what it is: the online copy of a magazine article. I would use {{cite journal}} instead of {{cite web}} and supply as much detail about it, especially in case the link ever goes dead. For instance, the journal is Texas Parks & Wildlife with an ISSN 0040-4586. Since the June 2011 issue according to http://www.worldcat.org/ is volume 69 issue 6, that would make the October 2006 issue volume 64 issue 10. When possible, give our readers the ability to seek out the paper copy of a source duplicated online because the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department may not always provide the article on the web for free like this. The online source doesn't have the page number(s), so unless/until someone can look up the paper edition online, I've omitted that detail in the sample citation below.
    • Klepper, E. Dan (2006). "Sky Island". Texas Parks & Wildlife. 64 (10). Austin, TX: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. ISSN 0040-4586. Retrieved 2009-12-14. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) which is coded as
    • {{cite journal |last= Klepper |first= E. Dan |title= Sky Island |journal= Texas Parks & Wildlife |location= Austin, TX |publisher= [[Texas Parks and Wildlife Department]] |month= October |year= 2006 |url= http://www.tpwmagazine.com/archive/2006/oct/ed_1/ |accessdate=2009-12-14 |volume= 64 |issue= 10 |page= |issn= 0040-4586}}
  4. Unlink TxDOT in the footnote by adding |link= no to the template. That way you aren't WP:OVERLINKing publishers in the references
  5. See #4, same thing.
  6. Don't link the publisher here, since it's the same publisher as in fn 3. Do add the publication year, even if it duplicates the edition.
  7. Looks fine, but I would relink this to the satellite view in Google Maps instead of the regular one. (Just load the link, switch to satellite in the upper right corner. Then click the chain-link icon to pull up the URL that's specific to those driving directions in that view. Copy/paste that link into the template in the article in place of the existing one.
  8. See #4 as well.

Footnote 8 uses the "Month DD, YYYY" format for its access date while the others use YYYY-MM-DD, or the ISO style. Either works, and I clearly prefer the former, but you need to be consistent with which is in use. MOS:DATE prohibits ISO dates in prose with very few exceptions, but allows it for retrieval/access dates in references. The guideline even allows a mixed format use where the publication dates are in one format while the retrieval/access dates are ISO. The key is consistency, so either fn 8 needs to be switched, or the others do.

 Done with references except for page number on citation #3
Navbox comments
  • I made two changes to the navbox, one to colorize it to match how many of the USRD navboxes have been restyled (including a tweak that allows the parks/rec roads line to have its MUTC Brown color while the rest is in MUTCD Green) and a second to fix the link to PR 3A so that it appears in boldfacing in this article. Feel free to replicate the colorization in the other Texas county-specific navboxes or remove it from this one.
One more thing...
  • I forgot to mention this above because there isn't really one section it's specific to. Just as we're supposed to place a non-breaking space between the number and unit in a measurement (unless the number is spelled out in words, like "two miles"), we really should be using non-breaking spaces between the number and word/letter portions of a highway name or abbreviation. Instead of Park Road 3 or PR 3, we should be using Park Road 3 or PR 3. That way if the highway name or abbreviation is near the end of a line, the browser can't insert a line break between the two parts of the abbreviation. That way instead of:
... Park Road
3A, also known as

you'd get something more like: 

... Park Road  3A,
also known as

or: 

... Park
Road  3A, also...

if that part of the prose was near the end of a line. Since our readers may be using a variety of browsers and monitor sizes, or even smartphones or tablets, we can't assume that something won't fall near the end of the line. Imzadi 1979 → 17:31, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Done with adding non-breaking spaces

I believe that Fortguy and I have addressed all comments. If I am mistaken, please inform me. Thanks, - Awardgive, the editor with the msitaken name. 05:16, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I made a few additional changes myself in this edit.
  1. The park map footnote was duplicated, so I switched the second instance so that it was just the named reference.
  2. Since some things shifted around, the park map is now the first references from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department that appears in the list of references, so I linked the publisher there and unlinked it in the journal article. I also added |format= PDF since it is a PDF file. (Not all readers will get the cute little PDF icon at the end of the link, so it's a good idea to indicate anytime we link to something that isn't a plain HTML page or one of the simple graphics formats like JPG or PNG.)
  3. The fraction was spelled out with a number, so it needed to be hyphenated ("one-half mile" vs. "a half mile") which I'll admit is a very picky minor thing to tweak. :-P
  4. You guys missed a non-breaking space.
  5. And the one TPWD source doesn't title the webpage "on the page" with the department abbreviation; that's listed in the HTML title at the top of teh browser window. We websites duplicate the website or publisher names in that HMTL title, I omit it from the title I use in the citation, especial when a heading in the page omits it. It's the difference between citing a Wikipedia article as "Texas Park Road 3", Wikipedia, or "Texas Park Road 3 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia", Wikipedia.

Overall, everything looks good, and I'm pleased to promote this. I hope you found some value in my explanations of why I suggested changes rather than have a reviewer just tell you to change something. Imzadi 1979 → 07:10, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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