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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Interstate 80 in Iowa/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 07:13, 25 October 2012 [1].

Interstate 80 in Iowa

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Interstate 80 in Iowa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): –Fredddie™ 02:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it is the most important road in the state of Iowa. I'm proud of where the article has gone in the last few months. I welcome your reviews and feedback; I hope you enjoy this article. –Fredddie™ 02:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate note -- As this appears to be Fredddie's first FAC in a while, like to see a spotcheck of sources for accuracy and avoidance of close paraphrasing. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Reference 13 is a dead link. - Awardgive, the editor with the msitaken name. 04:41, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dropped the dead link. I should have archived it when I had the chance. –Fredddie™

Comment: This article is very near FA standards, I just have one comment. Although WP:USRD/STDS states that an auxiliary routes section is optional, I believe that is would be beneficial here. I-80 has three auxiliary routes in Iowa, two of which have articles that are GAs, yet, this article barely mentions them. - Awardgive, the editor with the msitaken name. 04:57, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit puzzled by this - why is the quality of the other articles relevant? Also, why do you believe an "auxiliary routes" section is required? Furthermore, note that Interstate 70 in Colorado has auxiliary routes and does not have a such section. --Rschen7754 05:31, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about I-80, not the four auxiliary routes. That they're numbered I-X80 really doesn't have a lot to do with I-80 in and of itself. And yes, the quality of those articles is completely irrelevant. –Fredddie™ 11:36, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source spotchecks Hi, I only looked at one reference, footnote number 29 that cites this sentence: Each new rest area is designed around a theme. Looking at the source cited, I can't actually find that anywhere [2]. Then I looked at footnote 26, citing this paragraph: The Iowa DOT operates 37 rest areas and one scenic overlook in 20 locations along its 780 miles (1,260 km) of interstate highway. Along I-80, there are nine locations that have facilities for each direction of traffic. Parking areas are divided so passenger automobiles are separated from large trucks. Common among all of the rest stops are separate men's and women's restrooms, payphones with TDD capabilities, weather reporting kiosks, vending machines, and free wireless Internet. Many stations have family restrooms and dump stations for recreational vehicles. Same source, and again, can't find the info. It may be on one of the subpages for this website and if so then please swap out with the specific link to the page citing these facts. Each page might need a separate reference with a separate title. Publisher would the be same. I'll be back to check more later; no rush on this. Truthkeeper (talk) 15:45, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Regarding fn 29, the page cited is a list of information posters about the rest areas, so no, the information is not on that page. Basically, I'm saying "here is a list of information posters. If you click on them, you will see that they are designed around a different theme." I'm kind of at a loss at how to fix this. I could cite all 14 posters individually (which I think would be distracting), I could create a compound citation that lists all 14 posters (not as distracting, but leaning to overkill), or I could leave it as is and assume the reader is smart enough to click on a few of the poster links. Any input would be helpful.
  • Regarding fn 26, when I go to that page [3], I get a chart showing what services are at which stop. –Fredddie™ 23:08, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I must have clicked on the wrong one or something - prosifiying the chart is fine. This newspaper article is good, describes the rest areas and mentions the themes. If you add this to the other one with the pics then you're covered. I'll check more tomorrow. Truthkeeper (talk) 23:53, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

spotchecks cont

  • Source: "The interchange is identified in a new American Transportation Research Institute report as the worst heavy truck rollover “hot spot” in Iowa. Thirty heavy trucks rolled over at the interchange during a study from 2001 through 2009, more than any other spot in the state." [4]
  • Article: "The I-80 / I-380 interchange was identified by the American Transportation Research Institute as the most likely location in Iowa for a semi-trailer truck to overturn. Between 2001 and 2009, 33 trucks rolled over at the interchange"

The phrasing used in this section is too close to the source (and the number is incorrect per the source). Will check a few more. Truthkeeper (talk) 18:44, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • That sentence originally did not mention the American Transportation Research Institute. However, at ACR, I was asked to specify who identified the interchange as dangerous. [5] It certainly wasn't intentional. I have revised the two sentences in question, but I'm if the rollover sentence was adequately modified. –Fredddie™ 19:55, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The servers were definitely acting up because I was having trouble too. Thanks for the rewording; I think you could probably shove into a note who compiled the report and that solves the problem of being too close to the source. I haven't found any other issues. One thing though: although I removed some, check for WP:Overlinking, and also because the page was slow I forgot to check for non-breaking spaces between the US and numbers. Probably worth adding those. I saw a few prose glitches and may do a copyedit at some point. I do like that stretch of I-80 btw. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I ran the article through AWB since it's better at spotting overlinking than I am, and it passed through without catching anything. I also added some nbsps like you asked. –Fredddie™ 01:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

spotchecks cont.

  • Article: "Each year, the truck stop serves more than 2 million cups of coffee. Since it opened in 1965, it has served more than 64 million customers."
  • Source: "It serves more than 2 million cups of coffee each year .... In its 45 years, the truck stop has served 64 million customers."[6]

This needs rephrasing as well. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

final comments:

  • I'll let the delegates decide what to do here: Footnote 11 [7] cites bridges, but can't find anything about bridges in the page linked; footnote 4 mentions rural areas (farmland) but nothing in the source [8] about rural areas. Truthkeeper (talk) 22:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fn 4 is citing the corridor population. I didn't think anyone would challenge there being farmland in Iowa. :) I added a Google Map reference, which, when zoomed in, shows lots of rural areas.
    • From fn 11: "Download a map of Madison County and Winterset, Iowa, that features covered bridge locations and sites from the movie, Bridges of Madison County." –Fredddie™ 22:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(od) Tks for the spotcheck, TK. Fredddie, before we wrap this up, I see that the article contains many duplicate links that should be dealt with. If you don't have Ucucha's dup link tool installed to highlight them all, you can find it here. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I cleared out the overlinking highlighted by Ucucha's tool. I also went through the exit list and cleaned it up with the idea of having only unique links in the list itself. –Fredddie™ 05:09, 25 October 2012 (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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