Talk:Ohio State Route 161

Untitled

This article needs a section on points of interest along route 161 and a section on junctions. --DatraxMada 13:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll do junctions. Vid the Kid - Does this font make me look fat? 15:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The history section doesn't quite make sense and doesn't match my memory or old maps. From the eastern junction of I-270 to Big Walnut Creek (including the Sunbury Rd interchange) OH-161 has been a freeway since before the 90s. When the New Albany Bypass was completed, (1997 according to article) the road was already a freeway from I-270 to two miles east of New Albany, but the article says this was accomplished as a separate upgrade in 2000. I think there might have been a time when a short stretch of OH-161 on the west end of the bypass (what is now the Little Turtle Way interchange) wasn't completed as a freeway yet, but I wouldn't have considered the bypass itself completed under these conditions, and I'm sure it didn't last three years. (It should be noted that I have found at least one contradiction on John Simpson's site: http://pages.prodigy.net/john.simpson/highways/rr1926.html seems to imply that OH-1 never existed after 1926, but http://pages.prodigy.net/john.simpson/highways/071.html presents some information on OH-1's routing in the 60s.) ODOT's SLD's identify the bypass section with the year 1993, which I think is the year the project started. So I think the history point for the year 2000 should be removed -- but I don't know this with enough certainty to do it myself.Vid the Kid - Does this font make me look fat? 00:05, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Screw it, I'm merging the 1997 and 2000 history points. The New Albany Bypass was never anything but a freeway. Vid the Kid - Does this font make me look fat? 14:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggested fixes

1. Here's how things are done concerning abbreviations. Basically, you write out "State Route 161" and then put ("SR 161"), with the parentheses. Then, for all other state routes, you can just refer to them as "SR ###". This is also true for highways of other types such as Interstates, U.S. Routes, and County Routes. Done
2. The KML template should use |display=title,inline. Right now, it isn't shown in the title, which differs from most if not all other USRD articles (except for in New York, but that's another story). Done
3. "Ohio's Capital" - Why is "Capital" capitalized? (Heh...capital is capital-ized...I'm a nerd.) Done
4. A USRD lead, at least for minor state routes such as this one, almost always includes two paragraphs. The first one has the basic stuff: The route's name, mileage, location, etc. This paragraph summarizes the route description. The second paragraph should state when the route was established and all that good stuff. That paragraph summarizes the history. Done
5. Onto the history. If you play your cards correctly in the lead with the abbreviations, like I mentioned in comment #1, you should be able to lower the section's amount of fluff significantly by abbreviating all the state routes. Done
6. Generally speaking, a highway should not be referred to only by its number, as you do many times within the article. Wikipedia has a very formal tone, so you should always refer to it by its official abbreviation, in this case "SR 161". Done
7. Using the same place name twice in rapid succession generally doesn't read well. One phrase I'm referring to in particular is, "a concurrency from 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Dublin to Dublin". The second usage of "Dublin" could probably use a different noun like "the city itself" or something similar. Done
8. You know how I mentioned abbreviations above? Well, you can do the same thing with departments of transportation. When you mention the Ohio Department of Transportation in the lead, you can add the abbreviation in parentheses, then you can refer to it therein as ODOT. Done

More to come later. TCN7JM 03:36, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ohio State Route 161/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Imzadi1979 (talk · contribs) 12:28, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I'll get this review done in the next day or so. Imzadi 1979 → 12:28, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

In doing my review, I'll note some items below that are in addition to the standard GA criteria. Those items won't be required for listing as a GA, but they're still some best practices that I feel are good to follow at these earlier stages of article development. Even if you don't intend to take this article to WP:HWY/ACR or WP:FAC, I've found that some writing and editing techniques are beneficial to adopt earlier so that articles are easier to prep for future nominations at those review forums. (These sorts of things are not required of GAs, but IMHO, failure to deal with them isn't good for any article.)

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

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There are no disambiguation links present, which is good. There is one link (161 Worthington Underpass) that's not working for the external link checker, nor is it loading for me either.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   I'll detail the prose and MOS comments, by section, below this checklist.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   For criterion 2a, there are some pointers below related to formatting the footnotes. For for criterion 2b, I have a question below related to one source that I can't access, and the footnote doesn't list enough information for me to judge the reliability of the source.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Honestly, I prefer an article that answers all 5 Ws and the H. The "who" is left out, which for a road is normally "who uses this?". The answer to that is normally a brief discussion of the traffic counts so that a reader can say "between 1,000 and 1,000,000 drivers a day", or whatever. That's a personal preference though.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   This is one of the easier criteria; unless there's a recent edit war, and those are usually rare on highway articles, then the article should pass this. This one does.

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   File:270&161-looking-south.jpg has an issue with its licensing. The tag says "Creative Commons Attribution 2.5" and the description says "Image taken by the Ohio Department of Transportation, with written permission given for its use by anyone in any way. Please contact Todd Sloan (todd.sloan@dot.state.oh.us) to verify permission." We should confirm that the photograph's license is supposed to be CC-BY-2.5, or we should correct it. Either way, we should log a ticket with WP:OTRS with the confirmation.

   The captions should probably be using the abbreviated forms of the highway names for consistency with the text in the article.

I removed the picture for now.CycloneIsaac–E-Mail

1. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   There looks like there are a lot of comments, but really it's all minor stuff that's easily fixed. It also looks like a lot because I explained my reasons for suggesting changes below.

Some comments below are just general prose and writing comments that would be required to pass GA, while others are related more to formatting that wouldn't need to be fixed for promotion.

Lead Done

• Right after the boldface name of the article subject, the text should include its abbreviation, SR 161. That abbreviation should also be in boldface, but the parentheses that enclose it should not. The reason we do this is so that readers are introduced to the concept that "State Route 161" is abbreviated "SR 161".
  • Highway abbreviations with a space should use an non-breaking space. In fact, even the full names should use one as well.
  • Putting these ideas together, the first line would start:

    '''State Route 161''' ('''SR 161''') is an ...

  • Since the abbreviation convention for state routes is indicated in the first sentence of the lead then, you can abbreviate all others.
• The lead mentions the ODOT districts, but this detail isn't listed in the body of the article anywhere. Anything in the lead must be repeated somewhere in the body, and every section and major concept from the body needs to be summarized in the lead. (In my opinion, the junction list in the infobox serves as the summary of the junction list table.) Really, this is a minor detail that could be dropped from the article completely.
• It's usually not a good idea to start consecutive paragraphs with the same phrasing, just like it isn't a good idea to start consecutive sentences that way.

Infobox Done

• This looks good, but I'd add a footnote to the establishment year.

History Done

• Normally this section is second after the Route description, although WP:USRD/STDS allows either order. If the current organization is kept, I would flip the lead around to match (history first, RD details second).
• This section starts with the abbreviation done how I describe above, minus the boldfacing. (I didn't look to see if non-breaking spaces are being used.) The abbreviation should be introduced on the very first usage, not later.
• Whole numbers less than 10 should be spelled out in prose. There's a nifty template called {{convert/spell}} that will do that, and provide the conversion.
• When a measurement is used as an adjective ("the five-mile section" vs. "a section of file miles"), the number should be hyphenated to the unit. This is a basic grammar issue.
• I would recommend linking to the "in Ohio" articles for all Interstate and US Highways, even when the state-detail articles do not yet exist. If someone creates U.S. Route 33 in Ohio tomorrow, this article will automatically link to it, but until then, that redirect will point them someplace useful.
• If ODOT is being mentioned in the lead with an abbreviation, there's no need to spell out the full department name here again.
• If the NExT project is not going to be mentioned anywhere else in the article other than the footnote, the abbreviation isn't necessary.
• Just like highway abbreviations, items like "17 bridges" should use a non-breaking space so that the numeral isn't separated from the work by a line break. We can't assume that lines will break in the same locations on every screen used by every reader. Myself, I read Wikipedia on a phone, a table and various different laptop and desktop computers. I also print articles from time to time.
• I'd actually suggest flipping the image locations around to put the construction photo into the history and the other one into the RD.

Future Done (merged)

• I'd really try to expand this out into a full paragraph to justify using a heading for a single sentence. If not, add the date when this project was first proposed and include it in the history.
• I-270 should be abbreviated here. It should not be linked because the other link in the history isn't that far away. Yes, the guidelines say items can be linked on first usage in each major section, but without much separation, there isn't a need to relink here.

I merged future with history, so I guess I'm done.

Route description Done

• Assuming the RD continues to appear after the History section, there's no need to spell out full highway names with their abbreviations.

(I flipped those two around.)CycloneIsaac–E-Mail

• • Once the very first state route has been named in full with the appropriate abbreviation, it's no longer necessary to spell out that convention for every other state route.
  • Once the very first U.S. Highway has been named in full with the appropriate abbreviation, it's no longer necessary to spell out that convention for every other U.S. Highway. Ditto Interstates.
• Given the length of the article, I wouldn't relink any other highways in the RD that were already mentioned in the History or lead sections.
• Watch the formatting for footnote locations. They should appear immediately after the period without a space, and there should be a space after the footnote before the next sentence stars. The same goes for footnotes that appear after commas.
• A two-sentence paragraph like that doesn't need its own header.
• "The parts of the route who are in the byway are" should be "The parts of the route included in the byway are " or "The parts of the route that are in the byway are". Highways and byways aren't alive, so they aren't referred to with "who".

Junction list Done

Junction lists fall outside of the GA criteria, but I still recommend that the formatting follow MOS:RJL; this one does.

• Columbus-Marysville Road should have an en dash (–) instead of a hyphen (-) to join the two cities. It should be Columbus–Marysville Road then. The same goes for any other roads so named because they connect two separate locations, like Marysville–London Road or Hazelton–Edna Road.
• "Begin at-grade highway westbound and limited access highway eastbound" could be simplified to "Western end of limited-access highway" (note the hyphen in "limited-access"). Typically I advice against wording in the notes of a junction list that specify something as the start or the finish of a condition, and I prefer to use "<direction> end" or "<direction> terminus". Readers could be reading the table from the bottom up, and except for roads with one-way traffic, neither end is really the "start" or the "end".

Route 161J Done

• The section should be named "State Route 161J". It should use some boldfacing here as well. Think of this section as its own mini article that's merged here. A redirect from Ohio State Route 161J should point directly to this section, so treat it like a miniature article.

References Done

• All of them look reliable, except footnote 5. Since only the title of the webpage is given, and because I can't get it to load, I have no way to judge if that's a reliable source.

Took that one out, doesn't look reliable anyway.CycloneIsaac–E-Mail

• In general, I recommend that every citation gives as much information as possible about the author(s), dates, and publishers. Page numbers or other location references should be included as well, if they exist.
  • For online sources, access dates should be provided, and if the format isn't a common one like HTML, jpg, etc, the format should be indicated. (PDFs fall under that guideline as well because not everyone can nor wants to load a PDF because of size issues. Remember, not all of our readers have broadband Internet connections; some still use dialup modems and others rely on cell phones.)
  • Maps should ideally include a scale, if one is given. They should also indicate the cartographer, and what grid section(s), if applicable. If there is a specific inset to a larger map, that should be noted with the |inset= parameter in {{cite map}}.
  • An item like footnote 11 should be formatted using {{cite press release}} to indicate that it is a press release. The media contact(s) serve as the authors if necessary.
  • For items that are corporately authored, like a government report, there are no specific people to list as the authors. If there's a specific office or board/committee that is responsible for the creation of that document, they can be listed as the author. If there isn't that information listed, I use |author=Staff to indicate that it was written by the staff of the city or DOT.

External links Done

• These comments fall completely under the heading of my personal preferences. Since the KML box is wider than the Commons box, and because the link to Commons takes a reader to a sister website to Wikipedia, I give the Commons "top billing" in the EL section.
• However, if there are no external links listed with bullets, I would use {{commons category-inline}} to move the Commons link into the list. This is why when there was no list in the "See also" section left, I used {{portal-inline}} instead of {{portal}}. In that case, the KML box should be listed first so that it appears in the top right corner of the section. (IF you listed it second, it would be moved down a line.)

Final result

Everything looks good. I made some addition revisions to the citations just to clarify some things. The Columbus inset is part of the larger 2011 map, so I pulled the information from the legend of that map to finish that. I'll double check later on my paper copy again to see if there was a map scale listed for the insets. The article looks good, so it's a GA now. Imzadi 1979 → 06:53, 10 June 2013 (UTC)