Talk:Driving in Madagascar

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:20, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

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• Article history

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The interior of a crowded taxi brousse.

• ... that in taxi brousses, one of the main ways to drive in Madagascar, assistant drivers sometimes hang from the sides of the vehicle if they are too crowded (crowding pictured)? Source: Wulf, Volker; Misaki, Kaoru; Randall, Dave; Rohde, Markus (2018). "Travelling by Taxi Brousse in Madagascar. An Investigation into Practices of Overland Transportation" (PDF). Media in Action. University of Siegen. doi:10.25969/mediarep/16218. Retrieved 2023-01-19.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/P. Kodanda Rao
  • Comment: We finally filled the canonical red link example at Wikipedia:Red link! Please hold off on reviewing for a little bit until coäuthors have had the chance to propose alt-hooks if they want.

Moved to mainspace by Tamzin (talk), Red-tailed hawk (talk), and PerfectSoundWhatever (talk). Nominated by Tamzin (talk) at 22:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC).

Coauthor comments

• I was a pretty small contributor to this; great job to the other authors for whipping this up. I'll suggest a couple of hooks, fine with the original of course:
  • ALT1 ... that two-thirds of roads in Madagascar are in poor condition, impeding driving in the country? [1]
  • ALT2 ... that, due to bandits, convoys of 10 or more vehicles are required on some roads when driving in Madagascar? [2]
• — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 00:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
• A very cool new and long enough article about an otherwise unknown topic~ Hooks cited, I prefer ALT2 because it is the most unusual, ALT0 is quite typical for most of shared taxis in developing world and ALT1 is rather pedestrian. Earwig turns out fine and QPQ provided. I have one concern that some editors might argue this should be merged to Transport in Madagascar but i'll assume it is notable enough to have standalone article.Nyanardsan (talk) 21:55, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh no!

What will be our redlink example now??? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Red-tailed hawk changed it to Catholic Church in Sint Maarten! We just have to wait another 9 years for someone to write that article. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 16:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Going forward, I've written Wikipedia:Red link/History of the example red link. :D -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 20:23, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Removing relevant in-text attribution

@PerfectSoundWhatever: I'm not following why you see it as necessary to remove in-text attribution to the government of Madagascar's role in the World Bank study. Maybe it makes the study more reliable, maybe it makes it less, maybe neither; the whole point of that kind of attribution is to be transparent with the reader and let them draw their own conclusion. The WB report is in this regard a primary source by a party with a financial stake in the matter, and should be handled with care. It's not like this is a long, bloated article where we can't afford to have eight words clarifying Madagascar's role in the study. Could you please self-revert? Thanks. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 18:30, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. That superfluous bit about the government of Madagascar isn't in-text attribution. In-text attribution serves to attribute that a statement is an opinion of a certain source; this goal is already completed by the "2018 World Bank report" bit. The government of Madagascar was not an author of the source, and adding that they helped fund it is just an extra detail to the source.

Yes, the fact that they help fund it helps a reader draw a conclusion about the reliability and credibility of the source, but so do a million other things (e.g. where an article was published, how much it was cited, if other people in the field disagree with it). We don't give all that information in the prose: It is preferable not to clutter articles with information best left to the references. Interested readers can click on the ref to find out the publishing journal (WP:INTEXT). This is an issue in other parts of this article's prose.

I will not self-revert, but revert me if you wish. I will not edit war. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 19:03, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Very well, I've restored the previous wording, for reasons explained in the edit summary. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Why Driving in Madagascar, not Road transport in Madagascar?

Is there a reason? Driving in Madagascar is the sort of title I would expect in a travel guide, like Wikivoyage. Road transport in Madagascar looks more like an encyclopedia article. I see that we have several articles titled "Driving in (country)", and several titled "Road transport in (other country)" I have not noticed any overlap where there is both a "Driving in (X)" and a "Road transport in (X)". Am I missing something? Is there any difference in scope based on the titles? Please ping with reply. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 14:20, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

The title was based on Driving in the United States. I don't really know that the "driving/road transport in (X)" articles really have a consistent scope between them; this topic area lacks the sort of consistency that we see in the articles about railroad systems in a particular country. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 15:06, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, if there's some effort to standardize titling/scoping in this topic area, I wouldn't have an issue with a move if that's how things shook out, but as things stand I don't see one as inherently superior to the other and thus favor the status quo. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 21:58, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I think that "Road transport in (X)" has a clearer scope and looks less like a Wikivoyage travel topic, so would support a general shift to that style for road transport titles, but am not going to push the point at this stage. As there are a lot of both it should be a broader discussion to justify standardisation. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 04:34, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

(It seems that in at least some cases there is a difference in scope, see below. I have not checked whether this is generally applied consistently.) · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 05:24, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I looked at Driving in the United States. The scope of that article is more clearly about the activity of driving a road vehicle. This article includes more general information on road transportation. Road transport in the Unites States is also covered more generally by a large section in Transportation in the United States#Road transportation, which may at some time be split out into Road transportation in the United States as has already been done for others like Air transportation in the United States. Madagascar also has a higher level transport article Transport in Madagascar which appears to use excerpts from Driving in Madagascar for the road transport section, so does not really cover road transportation any more than does Driving in Madagascar. Both these points suggest that the scope of this article would more appropriately be Road transportation in Madagascar, and therefore that would be a more appropriate title.· · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 05:27, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

What about cargo?

Is driving in Madagascar restricted to driving passenger transport vehicles? What is the actual intended scope of the article? Please ping with reply. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 14:41, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: Hmm. Good point. I'm not sure how much there is in reliable sources on this, but there's at least a bit. I'll take a look. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 20:22, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Alright, found a bit on crop and water transport. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 22:00, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

It all helps. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 05:29, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Driving in Madagascar/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: LunaEatsTuna (talk · contribs) 23:48, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I will review this (hopefully) tomorrow. ツLunaEatsTuna (💬)— 23:48, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

This was surprisingly quite fascinating! I have an interest in transportation and love Africa. Anyways, I have placed this article on hold for now and left some comments below. Please ping me once you have addressed my concerns otherwise I will not know when to respond. Thanks! ツLunaEatsTuna (💬)— 18:11, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

@LunaEatsTuna: I think Tamzin and I have addressed all your comments below. Pinging you per your request, and I'll leave a talkback notice on your talk page. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:34, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I believe that is everything addressed. Nice work on the added content as well! Happy now to pass this article for GA status per the changes implemented. Congrats! ツLunaEatsTuna (💬)— 00:17, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Copyvio check

Earwig says good to go.

Files

All images used are relevant, of acceptable quality, appropriate and copyright-free:

File:Route Nationale 9 (Madagaskar) 01.jpg: CC-BY-SA 4.0;

File:Madagascar Transportation.jpg: valid public domain rationale;

File:Pousse-pousse Madagascar.jpg: CC-BY-SA;

File:Taxi brousses at station in Madagascar.jpg CC-BY-SA 4.0;

File:Taxi brousse interior in Madagascar.jpg CC-BY-SA 4.0;

File:Madagascar water tanker.jpg CC-BY-SA 2.0;

File:Madagascar road sign - school children.jpg CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Prose

• Change both instances of 4500 roads to 4,500 so it is consistent with the kilometres.

   Done — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:38, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "two-thirds of the roads as poor condition." – recommend "two-thirds of the roads as being in poor condition."

   Done — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:38, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "live near to a road in good condition" – change to "live near a road in good condition".

   Done — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:57, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "travel on the right side of the road." – wiki to left- and right-hand traffic.

   Done -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• The lead uses "inter-regionally" whilst the body spells "Interregional" without a hyphen.

   Fixed; the body now uses "trans-regional". — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:55, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "Bush taxis, or taxi brousses," – remove Bush taxis as this is already mentioned above.

   Done -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "In 1908, a road was built from Mahatsara to Antananarivo" is cited to a source from 1902.

   Fixed. Also reworded a bit because the source doesn't explicitly say what year the road was finished. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "As of 2022, Madagascar contains over" – make past tense.

  I was under the impression that "as of"s use present tense. The one example given at WP:ASOF does, at least. But happy to discuss further. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

   Not done I agree with Tamzin here; the proper tense is the present in this case. Both past and present could be used, depending on context, but they convey slightly different meanings; the former indicates that we're using it as a finite point-in-time (i.e. as of 1990, the virgin jungle of the Amazon rain forest spanned X square miles, but it has since decreased in size), whereas the latter implies a continuity-in-fact between the point-in-time and the present (i.e. As of noon on 20 January 2021, Donald Trump is no longer holds public office in the United States). For our purposes here, the present tense is better than the past. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:09, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Noted.

• "Traffic drives on the right side of the road." – this sentence may be more fitting at the end of the paragraph.

   Done — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:53, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "The road network spans" – spanned.

   Not done I've added a more recent source that gives the same number; the present tense seems appropriate. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:09, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Nice!

• "classified 64%" – change this and all instance of % to "percent" per MOS:%

  @Red-tailed hawk: What are your thoughts on this? My feeling has long been that MOS:% does not actually forbid using % signs but merely notes that many articles don't use them, but maybe that's a silly hill to die on. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Tamzin: I'm currently drafting a talk page discussion for an unrelated topic, but I will have time to take a look at this in about an hour. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:26, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Ok so drafting that discussion took shorter than I thought. I think that using "percent" is better stylistically, and, while exceptions apply to the MOS, I'm fine making the change to bring this within MOS compliance. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:42, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

   Done I've made the change for all instances of "%". — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "and 10% in good condition" – change to "ten percent" as it is 19 or lower (I do not make the rules I only rigorously enforce them

  Numeral "10" here seems correct per MOS:NUMNOTES since it's comparing to numerals "64" and "28"? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

   Partly done. Since the other numbers in the sentence are using numerical form, we should strive to maintain parallelism within the sentence. As parallelism in style within the sentence improves Wikipedia, I think it's fine (and follows policy) to ignore MOS here to enforce parallelism, regardless of the letter. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  It's not even an IAR thing. Comparable values nearby one another should be all spelled out or all in figures. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:53, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Ah, noted.

• "Seventy percent" – 70 percent.

   Fixed by rewording. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "only about twenty-two percent" – 22 percent.

   Fixed. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "Only 11.4%" – change to "11.4 percent," also:

   Done — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:49, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• As of when?

   2019 -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "and identified climate change as having the potential to worsen the road connectivity situation" – Does the report say how exactly?

   Fixed. It does, but it's brief, and I've added a brief summary at the end of the relevant sentence in our article. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:47, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks, that looks good.

• "to over 800,000" as of when?

   passenger and commercial vehicles -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "with high income" – I reckon we could wikilink high income here.

   Fixed The sentence needed to be rephrased, and the rephrasing happened to take out the phrase "high income", so I don't see this as being an issue any longer. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:49, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Oh no, this point of mine is in permanent limbo!

• "and pay 2.4 million Malagasy ariary" – in USD? Also: just ariary is fine IMO.

   Fixed USD conversion inserted. I'd like to state "Malagasy Ariary" on both first reference in the lead and first reference in the body, in case the reader is not familiar with the currency. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:37, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Fair enough. I agree that is a good idea.

• "Import of vehicles" – should it not be "Importing vehicles" or "The importing of vehicles" etc?

  Is this a grammar concern or a stylistic one? This seems grammatically correct to me per wikt:import#Noun sense 3. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:37, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

   Fixed Importation refers to the act of importing, and it is that act that is taxed, so the sentence now says "importation". — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:51, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "the charretiers ('carters')," – really no need to link to Wiktionary as it is translated right here.

  My concern here was that "carter" isn't a particularly well-known word in English, so a link to Wiktionary still seemed beneficial. But happy to discuss. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:37, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with Tamzin here; the Wiktionary link is helpful to even readers who have native levels of English-language comprehension. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 21:05, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Ah, I see. I prefer to avoid external links as well as reasonably possible.

• "in 1993 the national agency Alimentation en Eau dans le Sud (AES) engaged with the government of Japan to acquire 24 tanker trucks for water in 1993." – duplicated use of in 1993.

   Fixed -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:37, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• I would wikilink speed limit as it seems relevant to this type of article.

   Done -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:37, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "There is no speed limit on highways" – highways being?

  The source reports merely that there are no speed limits on "motorways" (i.e. what North Americans call highways). This doesn't seem ambiguous. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:54, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Red-tailed hawk: Perhaps "freeway"? That's what I did at a different article as probably the most international term. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 21:39, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  A "freeway" is a type of highway that is explicitly not a toll road; the source mentions nothing about toll roads, so I don't know that this is appropriate. I don't see how this would be the most international term for the general concept of a highway. There is currently a toll road under construction, so I worry that the term "freeway" is going to be made obsolete very quickly. Highway seems to capture the content perfectly fine, and it is consistent with the WP:ENGVAR in which the article is written. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:04, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Tamzin: Digging in a bit more, I've made some changes that better reflects the current speed limit situation w.r.t. local municipalities and that of toll road under construction. Please let me know if you have any questions. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:29, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Looks good! I am not familiar with road terminology so this may be an issue on my end.

• "Wulf et al." – should be "Volker Wulf et al."

   Done — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:11, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "While a 2018 WHO fact sheet" – recommend "Although a 2018 WHO fact sheet". And change to "World Health Organization (WHO)" and replace this later mention to just WHO.

   Fixed Moved the abbreviation to first reference and redid the sentence a bit. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:17, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• "it reported" – it?

   Fixed The entity the WHO got the data from is listed as the "National Gendarmerie", which is covered on the English Wikipedia at the page that Gendarmerie Nationale (Madagascar) redirects to. Attribution for the data source has been added. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• I would put Transport in Madagascar as a see also in either § Means of transport or § See also.

   Done in the § See also. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:58, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• Efn note 6 needs a full stop as the others employ this.

   Done — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:58, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• The commons link to Share taxis in Madagascar does not exist.

   Fixed -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:39, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Refs

Passes spotcheck—no concerns with refs 3, 9, 10, 13, 18 or 19. I had access to refs 3 and 10 via the Wikipedia Library. Formatting:

• Is there a reason ref 1 has "(published 4 April 2022)" in its publication name?

   Fixed That would be due to erroneously using the CS1 publication-date field instead of the source-date field. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:41, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• Is a full publication date available for refs 9 and 20?

  N I cannot find a pub date for 9 more specific than "2018". Apparently CS1 does support date ranges for dates, though (TIL!), so I've Y updated 20 to "April–June 2007" per [3]. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 18:54, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Ah, all good! I also did not know that. That seems slightly problematic for certain magazines.

• Wikilink World Health Organization in ref 21.

   Done and switched to {{cite report}}. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:01, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Other

Short desc, image formatting, tables, navs, other templates and cats good.

• Please add WP:ALT text.

   Done -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 20:06, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Stray sources

"Place, Person and Ancestry among the Temanambondro of Southeast Madagascar"

1996 doctoral thesis, some stuff about the cultural impact of roads -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Muddling Through in Madagascar

Per Ridiculopathy. 1985 book. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 20:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't get it. What are "Stray sources"? Ridiculopathy (talk) 23:00, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh, just my way of saying sources that are not currently in the article but could be. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 23:01, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Ah I see. Its a great book btw, I could try dig it out and add some stuff to the article from it? Ridiculopathy (talk) 10:15, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

That would be awesome. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:58, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Move to "Road transport in Madagascar"

I think this title is more in line with the article's scope. Thoughts? Zanahary (talk) 02:02, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, this article seems to be about cars, vans and trucks (i.e. driving) specifically. For instance, cycling is possible on roads, as is walking (there are very few sidewalks in Madagascar). This is consistent with other page titles, like Driving in Singapore, whereas Road transport in Australia indeed has a section on bicycles. At least this is how I see it. ツ LunaEatsTuna (💬)— 03:25, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

The article discusses oxen and pousse-pousses in its descriptions and history of Madagascar's roads, neither of which are automobiles. Adding a section on bicycles would definitely not be out of scope for the article. Zanahary (talk) 03:36, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

If you were to add a section on bicycles then I would probably not be opposed to a page move. ツ LunaEatsTuna (💬)— 15:12, 14 January 2024 (UTC)