Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Interstate 96/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 10:01, 8 June 2013 (UTC) [1].

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Interstate 96

Interstate 96 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/Interstate 96/archive1

Nominator(s): Imzadi 1979 → 18:53, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because I think it merits review and promotion. I-96 is an intrastate Interstate Highway; it only exists in Michigan. It parallels Grand River Avenue across most of the Lower Peninsula of the state, following in the proverbial footsteps of an Indian path and an early wagon trail used in the early settlement of Michigan. Imzadi 1979 → 18:53, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support I reviewed at both GA and ACR (Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/Assessment/A-Class Review/Interstate 96) and feel it meets the criteria. --Rschen7754 18:57, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support - I also reviewed it at ACR and believe that it meets all the FA criteria. Dough4872 19:22, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support. (having stumbled here from my FAC) I saw this and read it over a couple days ago and it's quite meticulous in its breadth and referencing. But that table in section Exit list sure does pack in a lot of useful info. That would probably be quite useful for readers, editors, and of course, travelers, alike. — Cirt (talk) 21:16, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments: I don't usually comment on road articles, but I notice this review seems to have stalled some while ago, so I'd like to get it moving again. Here are a few mainly prose comments, on the lead and first main section:

• The length of the highway needs to be given in the lead, not just in the infobox which is an independent entity.
• Inappropriate bolding in lead
  • Actually, no, per MOS:BOLDSYN, the abbreviation and alternate names should be in boldface. There are also redirects from the alternate names to this article. Imzadi 1979 → 07:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
• "The Jeffries Freeway was rerouted through Detroit in the 1960s and built in the 1970s". This reads oddly. I take it to mean that the rerouted portion of the freeway was built in the 1970s?
• "In 2011, the department's traffic surveys showed that on average, 201,200 vehicles used the highway daily between 6 and 7 Mile roads in Livonia and 20,638 vehicles did so each day between Airline and Fruitport roads near Norton Shores, the highest and lowest counts along the highway, respectively." Overlong sentence and a bit tortuous to follow - would benefit from being split.
• Why the italicisation of Rosa Parks Memorial Highway (not italicised in lead)?
• "The segment from Livonia east to I-275 is also the Jeffries Freeway..." Again inappropriate italicisation, and perhaps "incorporates the Jeffries Freeway" rather than "is also"
• "From the start, the highway has a grassy median and two lanes in each direction..." "From the start" implies "for its whole length" - is this the intention? Or should it read "At the start..."?
• "in area of mixed fields" → "in an area of mixed fields" (what is actually meant by "mixed fields"?
• "After about a distance of five miles..." → "After a distance of about five miles..."
• "The highway crosses the Crockery Creek and turns eastward toward Coopersville. The freeway..." Highway becomes "freeway", not clear why. Are the terms interchangeable?
  • A freeway is a type of highway, so in this case, yes, they are interchangeable. Imzadi 1979 → 07:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
• "Past Marne, I-96 passes..." Very clumsy; suggest "Beyond Marne..." etc
• "I-96 turns northeasterly past a commercial area to a three-quarter cloverleaf interchange that provides all of the other connections with US 131 next to a crossing of the Grand River". Some internal punctuation required to make sense of this. The word "of" is redundant.
• "East of downtown..." Link downtown, and clarify that you are referring to Grand Rapids.
  • Actually, I disagree. "downtown Grand Rapids" is mentioned just a few sentences up, and I don't think there's value in linking that word in either location. Imzadi 1979 → 07:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

It seems likely on the basis of the above that the rest of the prose could do with a bit of polishing, too. Brianboulton (talk) 18:20, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Prose fixes applied for the bullet points above except where noted. Imzadi 1979 → 07:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I've done some copyediting on the RD, hope to finish today. --Rschen7754 10:44, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Few days late but copyedit is finished: [2] (with a few intervening edits). I didn't find much in the history part; usually it's the route description that has the most grammar / repeated word use issues. --Rschen7754 06:08, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Delegate comment -- check dup links per this; may be grounds to keep one or two that span the length of the article but otherwise pls remove. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:12, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

The links highlighted by the script appear in the lead and then again in the History, with the entire Route description section in between. The others duplicate between entries in the Exit list (which explicitly links to each intersecting roadway and destination city for consistency) and other links in the body (RD and Related trunklines) That meets the guidelines behind WP:REPEATLINK, so there's nothing to be removed. Imzadi 1979 → 02:41, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you look again, and remember that the checker only highlights the duplicates, not the first instance of the link... Just to take one example, you have Howell linked once under Route description and then twice under History -- this isn't necessary. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:38, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I looked again and applied some tweaks. It would be better, I think then, if that tool actually highlighted each occurrence instead of the subsequent ones. Imzadi 1979 → 07:18, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

That looks better, tks. I grant you it might be better if the script highlighted the first instance of a duplicate as well but personally I'm just grateful we have any sort of checker. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:33, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Sources review

• Quite a few of the sources are maps, only a few of which are available online. That's OK, but some of the online maps are illegible; I refer in particular to refs 22, 23, 26 and 27. I'm not sure how much this matters, since the reader is no worse off than with the unlinked maps. I just wonder whether these links are worth having, since if the maps can't be read the links are virtually useless.
  • Ref 26 isn't just a map, but also the whole numbering plan, and the text gives additional details above and beyond the map itself. At least in my browser, I can zoom in on the details of the maps, and they're legible on my display. I'd rather err on the side of providing a link per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT than not in these cases. Imzadi 1979 → 01:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
• Ref 30: broken link
  • The link works for me. Imzadi 1979 → 01:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
• Ref 31: "registration required" should be noted
  • Registration is not required; the website allows unregistered readers the ability to read two articles per day. Imzadi 1979 → 01:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
• Ref 48: Link goes to the Wikimedia image of the map. Shouldn't it go to the source of the Wikimedia image?
  • The source is offline, and we have a convenience copy on Commons. It's not really any different than providing a convenience link to a dead-tree book on Google Books. Imzadi 1979 → 01:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
• Ref 58: First link gives: "Sorry - we seem to have misplaced the page you were looking for."
  • Looks like the link finally went dead, but since it's archived, that's an easy flip-flop of links in the citation template. Imzadi 1979 → 01:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
• Ref 60: "subscription required" should be noted
  • And it looks like they moved that behind a paywall very recently. Imzadi 1979 → 01:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
• Ref 63: I don't understand the link to the "original", which seems to go to a completely different source page.
  • MDOT has a habit of recycling URLs for their five-year plans from time to time, but when that link was consulted originally, it matched the archived copy. Imzadi 1979 → 01:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
• Ref 67 has a different title, and the publisher does not appear to be Michigan Department of Transportation
  • Patrick Allen, an MDOT employee reposted the contract verbatim in a newsgroup. It may be hosted by Yahoo, but it is still originally published by MDOT, and this is another case of saying where I got the information. The full text of that contract is also on the article's talk page for convenience as well. Imzadi 1979 → 01:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Otherwise sources look good. Brianboulton (talk) 16:42, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

A thorough Image check has already been done during ACR. No images changed afterwards. GermanJoe (talk) 13:03, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 07:34, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.