Wikipedia:Peer review/Dinosaur Diamond Scenic Byway/archive1

Dinosaur Diamond Scenic Byway

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for May 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I need help improving the article after a failed GA review. Unresolved issues can be found on the GA review page. Major issue was lack of information regarding the formation/history of the scenic byway, the reviewer also noted on my talk page that the "flow sucks", so basically I wanted a second opinion and was also wondering if anybody knew of any good sources for info regarding the formation of the DDSB.

Thanks, ErgoSum•talk•trib 01:32, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: Creating an article for which you can find no model to imitate is an interesting project. I have never written a highway article, although I've edited quite a few, and I recognize in this article some of the methods used for ordinary highway articles. On the other hand, those methods aren't of much use in dealing with what makes this highway unusual. Might I suggest a somewhat different organization?

(1) Starting with "Route description" is fine, but I would put all the relevant route material here and not extend it into the history section or any other section. I'd eliminate the lists and highway icons from this section and go with straight prose. I'd make it clear at the outset that the direction of movement from Fruita onwards was counterclockwise around the loop.
(2) I'd think about compressing the material about what the designation of "National Scenic Byway" means and I'd delete most of the history of the individual road segments such as I-70. Links to the I-70 article and other specific highway articles would serve the purpose. I'd think about retaining the material about the Old Spanish Trail, however, because I think the "History" section could focus on the history of transportation in this region. The Old Spanish Trail went the way it did, I assume, because of something inherent in the topography, and I'm guessing that would be true of most of the other parts of the byway.
(3) This leads to my next suggestion, which is to precede "History" with a section called "Geology and topography" that would help explain the ups and downs of this route (highest elevation, lowest elevation), as well as landforms (mountains, rivers, canyons) that caused its parts to be built this way or that. The geology part of this section would help make more clear what the land was like in the Jurassic, so good for dinosaurs, and how these parts of Utah and Colorado got to be where and what they are.
(4) I'd consider adding a section called "Towns" and adding brief descriptions of them that included things like population, attractions, main industries, and so on. Just what to include will depend on what you find. I'd arrange these in counterclockwise order to match the order of the "Route description". (You might change your mind and go clockwise; if you do, make everything go clockwise.)
(5) I'd think about adding a section called "Parks" and moving most of the parks material (except for location language) out of the "Route description", putting it here and adding new material. It would be possible to add a sentence or two about each of the main parks like Arches National Monument, and to at least list the others. I'd do these in counterclockwise order also.
(6) Other things to think about include weather. Is some of the route closed during parts of the year? Does skiing replace kayaking as a major reason for traveling this route in winter? Does somebody sponsor a marathon on a big hunk of this route? How about flora and fauna in and around the diamond? I don't say that you definitely need all this, but it's something to think about.

A site that seems to have tons of stuff is The U.S. Department of Transportation's America's Byways site. Although many of the images on this site are protected by copyrights that make them unusable on Wikipedia, some are labeled "public domain" and could be uploaded to the Commons and used if you see any you like. A lot of text information is here too. See this page, for example.

Here a few nitpicky suggestions about prose and style issues:

Colorado

"From the trails, one may view attractions such as the Book Cliffs and Coke Ovens overlooks... " - "One" isn't generally used in this way in Wikipedia articles. Something like "Attractions visible from the trails include the Book Cliffs and Coke Ovens overlooks... " would be better.
"Nearby attractions include the Rangely Outdoor Museum and the Canyon Pintado ("painted canyon") Historic District petroglyphs, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places." - "Petroglyphs" is plural, but "is" is singular. Maybe "... and the petroglyphs of the Canyon Pintado ("painted canyon") Historic District, which is listed... ".
"Upon leaving Dinosaur, the DD continues west on U.S. Highway 40 and crosses the border into Utah." - Orphan paragraphs like this one are generally frowned upon. They can either be expanded or merged with another paragraph. A couple more of these appear at the end of the "Utah" section.

Utah

"Heading 29 miles (47 km) to the west is the county seat of Duchesne, located within the reservation." - The county seat isn't heading anywhere. Suggestion: "Another 29 miles (47 km) to the west is Duchesne, the county seat, located within the reservation."

References

It's good to make these as complete as possible. A good rule of thumb is to try to include author, title, publisher, date of publication, url, and access date for web-based sources. Citation 10, for example, could include 2009-05-01 as the publication date (the last date that the page was updated).

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 03:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Very helpful, and some good ideas. Although, in reference to #2, if you look at the version of the page as it existed when it was failed, you will see that I added a lot of irrelevant info which prompted the GA reviewers comments. I also had links to each of the road articles in the history section, but the reviewer complained that there were too many section headings. So I don't know what to do.

Also, the byways site is pretty useless as far as hard facts are concerned. In fact, any info about the byway which isn't targeted toward tourists is hard to find. But I do like your ideas for the organization of the article. I will see what I can do about it. But as you can see, the problem is there are no precedents to fall back on so I suppose we will be forging a new standard! I appreciate your feedback. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 18:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: As requested at the BP Bridge PR, here is my review. I agree with Finetooth's comments and have a few more suggestions for improvement

There are several places where the article could do a better job at providing context for the reader - see WP:PCR. For example in the lead, I think it might help to give the states in this sentence The highway forms a diamond-shaped loop with vertices at Moab, Helper, [and] Vernal [in Utah] and Grand Junction [in Colorado]. so that the reader gets an idea that much of the Byway is in Utah. Or also in the lead, I would explain that Interstate 70 is a part of the byway before going into its history.
Per the MOS, provide both English and metric units (such as ditances in miles also having the km). The {{convert}} template works well here.
Per WP:CITE references generally AFTER punctuation, and are usually at the end of a sentence or phrase - unless it is a direct quote or extraordinary claim, the lead usually does not need refs (as it is a summary of the referenced text).
I also think I might include DD in the lead, assuming that is a common abbreviation.
Per WP:HEAD, the names of subsections should not repeat the names of sections, so I think Utah history and Colorado history as subsections of History might need to be renamed.
I think it would be helpful to briefly describe what the land was like during the time of the dinosaurs and why so many fossils are found there. I also think it would be interesting and useful to mention the Native American inhabitants who left the petroglyphs behind, and their later descendants. Were any of these routes Native paths or wagon trails in pioneer days?

Hope this helps. Thanks again for your comments on BP Pedestrian Bridge. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Again, some good ideas here. I'm really stretching my time here so I will have to address these later, not to mention that this is going to take a lot of work. This article is relatively new, and hasn't been edited that much, so in retrospect, I'm sure the GA nomination was premature... as I can see there is a lot of technical detail that I have overlooked. As far as your comments go, I'm not sure DD is a common abbrevation, but I use "DDSB" a lot, and that is only because I'm always talking about it. Also, I renamed the subsections of "History", adding the words "history" to them specifically to avoid the "same name conflict" between "route description" and "history". So I'm not sure there is a problem there, perhaps you were confused about something? No big deal. Thank you for your comments, these ideas are excellent, and I will definitely keep them in mind when I attempt to improve this article. --ErgoSum•talk•trib 22:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]