Wikipedia:Peer review/Harvard Bridge/archive2

Harvard Bridge

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because many changes have been made since the last peer review. I want to see what's still an issue.

Thanks, Denimadept (talk) 05:36, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: This looks a lot better than the last time I reviewed it. I think this is pretty close to GA, here are some suggestions for improvement.

• I think the lead is still pretty thin / sparse as a summary fo the article. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way but the Engineering study and discrepancy in measurement with smoots do not seem to be in the lead.
• Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself. However the "Mass Ave" bridge and MIT bridge names are only in the lead that I can see.
• Abbreviations like Mass Ave need to be given on first use, so Massachusetts Avenue (Mass Ave)
• Be consistent in details - is it "Mass Ave" (in quotes) or just Mass Ave? Both are used in the article.
• Or why is Bridge capitlaized in the article name, but not in Mass Ave bridge and MIT bridge?
• The use of bold face in the lead is OK per WP:LEAD, but the other uses of boldface do not seem as if they follow WP:ITALIC
• Ref 4 is to Wikipedia, which is not a reliable source and would not be OK in a GAN or FAC review
• Some of the refs do not have all the required information. So for example, Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V
• Watch for POV language like "unfortunately" in Unfortunately, Boston did not like this act, mainly because it did not provide for an overhead crossing of the Grand Junction Branch of the Boston and Albany Railroad.
• MOS says that for block quotes some sort of attribution should generally be made, so this needs to be put into context as from the 1892 book The effect that the bridge will have upon both cities is obvious. The low land and marshes on the Cambridge side, formerly almost valueless, have been filled in and ...
• Inflation figures need a year (This is equivalent to US$13,210,000 with inflation as of YEAR.[12])
• Watch WP:OVERLINKing - Charles River is linked at least three times in just one section, and common terms like USA are not linked
• It seems to me that there could be a bit more context - looking at a map, the bridge runs nearly north-south and Cambridge / MIT is on the northern end, for example.
• Or reading about smoots, the frat houses were at one end of the bridge and MIT at the other end, so they wanted the bridge sidewalk marked so they could see how far they had walked.
• Lots of short (one or two sentence) paragraphs that make the narrative flow choppy - these could be combined with others or perhaps expanded.
• Is the discrepancy in smoots and bridge length due to the start / end points for each being in different places?
• There is a book called Smoot's Ear - might be a useful source.
• Seems odd that there is no history past 1990 - nothing has been done to / happened on the bridge in the last 2+ decades?
• Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:53, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. That helps a lot. Comments follow.

"Mass Ave" is in quotes because it's a vulgar way of referring to the bridge. In that sense, "MIT bridge" should probably be in quotes too. Bolding is used in many articles' leads to show alternate common names for something, but perhaps there should be another way to show the alternate names. They have to be included so people can find the article using a search. Note that Massachusetts Avenue is named later in the paragraph as the road carried by the bridge. I think of the bolded name as a forward reference to this.

The "longest bridge over the Charles River" needs a better reference, agreed. As it is, it looks too much like OR. It needs to be there to help with notability.

The citation is before each of the block quotes. This is a change I made recently to make the formatting better. Previously, the attribution showed up after the quotes on its own line, which was not acceptable either.

You think a second map would help?

I don't know where the frat house is/was. That's not in any refs I've seen. Why they wanted the measurement is not clear, but it seems to me that the desire or need for a measurement is not really the point of the prank. They wanted the measurement as a way to give the pledges something tedious to do which seemed relevant to the technical context of the university. Why they started the measurement at the northern side of Storrow Drive rather than at the far end of the bridge is also unclear. Maybe they were lazy. I used to have some speculation about that in the article, but as speculation, and uncited at that, it was declared OR so I removed it. We'd have to find published explanations of this in order to use it, and I seriously doubt such exists. Certainly I've not found any.

"Smoot's Ear" - ordered. Good thing we're not in a big hurry here, as it was listed as arriving next week.

I haven't seen anything about activity on the bridge in the last 20 years, yes. It's still there, I've not read of any major construction on it. No explosions, no collapse, nothing notable. If someone else has, they're welcome to add it. I suppose I could ask MassDOT if they know of anything, but that'd be OR! Can't have that. Maybe some research in the Boston Globe's archives would help.

this and this strikes me as non-notable. Funny, maybe, but not worth listing.

this is mildly notable, implying that it took Boston 114 years to connect to the bike lanes on the Harvard Bridge. I could see adding this. Done. :-) - Denimadept (talk) 19:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Now I've checked the "longest bridge" issue. The list article doesn't list crossing lengths, so it's not even slightly relevant. I've commented that out. A web search found reflections of the lead in many other places, but nothing which says this in a way we can use. I can prove the bridge is the longest over the river by a quick glance at a map, but that's not something we can use either, as it's OR. Gah. - Denimadept (talk) 08:16, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I've sent a query to MassDOT to see if they can help me, perhaps with something on their site I can cite. - Denimadept (talk) 08:41, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

MassDOT sent me a PDF containing all the bridges over the Charles with their lengths. How can I cite such a thing? - Denimadept (talk) 22:56, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Sctechlaw comments: Structurally the article looks like it's coming together well, and as per the previous reviewer, a bit more context would up the interest level for the reader.

• One semantic thing I noticed, in the Conception section you say the

  "... Legislature passed two acts, Chapters 175 and 314 to authorize the construction ..."

  The Chapters themselves are not the Acts, so better to refer to them a bit differently. I think you actually mean that the

  ... Legislature passed two enabling laws in the Acts of 1882: Chapters 175 and 314 authorizing the construction of a bridge between Boston and Cambridge."

  The distinction is important because of how laws were organized at the time. The Acts are all the enabling laws passed in a given year, while each Chapter contains the the laws actually passed and each Section governs a subsection of each law. At the time I don't know they referred to them exactly that way, but in law we do now so as to differentiate the body of law from a section of it. Ergo: Acts (body of law) -> Chapter (single subject of law) -> Section (specific subset addressed).
• Also, each time you use the words "Act" and "Chapter", you are referring to a specific body of law or a law itself, thus Act and Chapter should be capitalized when used in this way.
• Also as per the previous reviewer, some contemporary data would be helpful, especially in light of the sorry state in which so many U.S. bridges now find themselves. I think there have been many contemporary studies done comparing the ages of bridges across the U.S. and how they fare comparably, so you could use that sort of data to address any contemporary issues. This is the sort of information people often look for after a tragedy such as the ones in PA and MN not long ago, so that sort of thing would be pretty helpful.
• I also have an article up for peer review, so if you have the time please consider reviewing Apple Inc. litigation.
  Good luck! Sctechlaw (talk) 03:48, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oh (came back to add one more thing), and when you cite a law it would be helpful to the reader to use a citation to the original source, especially as you refer to the laws directly. You can find the Acts of Massachusetts using a Google books search like this one, as the Acts were published every year. Sctechlaw (talk) 04:09, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice!! There are templates I can use, and will. - Denimadept (talk) 04:16, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, here's the text from the original source:

In 1874 the construction of a new bridge between Boston and Cambridge was agitated by residents of both cities. In that year the Legislature passed two Acts, Chapters 175 and 314, "authorizing the construction of a new bridge and avenue across the Charles river, between Boston and Cambridge." Nothing, however, was done about the matter, and the subject was not agitated again until 1882, when, by Chapter 155 of the Acts of that year, the cities of Boston and Cambridge were authorized to construct and maintain a bridge over Charles river, which Act was approved April 14, 1882. Its provisions are as follows:

[Chap. 155, Acts of 1882.]

An Act to authorize the cities of Boston and Cambridge to construct and maintain a bridge over Charles river.

Be it enacted, etc., as follows:

SECTION 1. The cities of Boston and Cambridge are authorized to construct a bridge and avenue across Charles river, from a point on Beacon street, in Boston, to a point in Cambridge, west of the westerly line of the Boston and Albany railroad. The location of said bridge and avenue shall be determined by the city councils of said cities acting separately, subject to the approval of the board of harbor and land commissioners, so far as it affects the harbor, and subject, moreover, to the limitation that the line thereof shall not be north-east of a line drawn from the junction of Beacon street and West Chester park, in Boston, to the juction of the harbor line with Front street, extended, in Cambridge, nor south-west of a line drawn from the junction of Beacon street, Brookline avenue and Brighton avenue, in Boston, to the junction of the Boston and Albany railroad with Putnam avenue, extended, in Cambridge. Said bridge shall have a draw with a clear opening of at least thirty-eight feet in width for the passage of vessels.

SECT. 2. Said bridge shall be constructed of such materials as the said cities may agree upon, but on iron or stone piers and abutments, to be of such size, shape, and construction, and be at such distance from one another, as the said board of harbor and land commissioners, upon application made by said cities upon such notice as said board may deem proper, and after a hearing thereon shall determine and certify to each of said cities; and no pier or abutment shall be built except in accordance with such certificate. The avenue, with the exception of the portion between the harbor lines, may be constructed of solid fillin, with the approval of the said board of harbor and land commissioners. Neither city separately shall enter upon the construction of said bridge, but they shall jointly proceed to construct the same in accordance with plans to be submitted to and approved by the councils of said cities concurrently, and by the said board of harbor and land commissioners.

SECT. 3. Each city may within its own limits purchase or otherwise take lands, not exceeding one hundred and twenty-five feet in width, for said bridge and avenu; and all the proceedings relating to such taking shall be the same as in the case of land taken for highways within said cities respectively, with like remedies to all parties interested; and betterments may be assessed for the construction of said bridge and avenue in each city in like manner as for the laying out of highways under the betterment acts in force in each city respectively, with like remedies to all parties interested.

I'd have kept typing, but I think I already did too much. :-> So, were they just being sloppy? As I'm not quoting that part of the text in the article, I can correct it. - Denimadept (talk) 04:45, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and the original document, long out of copyright, is on Google Books at this location. - Denimadept (talk) 04:52, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, I read it before you posted it, lol. You are reasonably confused -- the methods of referring to laws as Acts confuses a lot of people. It's sort of like an orange: on the one hand, "the orange" could be the one on the table, on the other hand "the orange" could refer to the world of oranges, it just depends upon the context. In the context of your article, an Act is a law, a Chapter within the (collected) Acts describes and codifies that law. The Acts (plural) are a body of laws as codified. So, if you refer to the law as passed as I did in the example above, that should clarify it for the reader to the extent required in the article. If you read one of the Acts in the original (which you can do from the Google books link I provided), it should become much clearer to you, and this is the reason for citing directly to the original as well as to the material you did cite, so the reader can also read it if desired. I remember also being confused about it as a first year law student long ago, and only with reading of the actual statutes over time did it become clearer for me. Sctechlaw (talk) 05:23, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

So you can cite an Act, which is a Chapter, or The Acts, which is all the Chapters of a particular year? How about that first mention under "Engineering"? - Denimadept (talk) 05:29, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Sort of. In the context of your article, a Massachusetts Act is not a Chapter, but The Acts are indeed all the Chapters of a particular year. An Act is a law enacted, while the Chapters within the Massachusetts Acts describe the Acts themselves. Think of an Act as a law, and the Chapters as the guts of the laws -- each Act was usually unnamed at the time, instead having a short description at the head of the Chapter further describing what was being enacted. Not too tidy, like today, but it was enough at the time.

These days we often name Acts in U.S. law, making reference to them easier. Examples would be the Mann Act, or the Clayton Act; if you cite to those laws you use the name of the law (which the Massachusetts Acts in your article do not have), and the date and year, as well as the context, for example:

Clayton Act, ch. 323, § 7, 38 Stat. 730, 731-32 (1914) (current version at 15 U.S.C. § 18 (1988)).

That citation tells the reader to find the Clayton Act in Chapter 323, Section 7 of Volume 38 of the U.S. Statutes, beginning on page 730, with the particular material cited on pages 731-738, enacted in 1914 and currently codified in Title 15 of the U.S. code in Section 18 published in 1988.

Another example, for an unnamed law, would be:

Act of July 9, 1985, Pub. L. No. 99-68, 1985 U.S.C.C.A.N. (99 Stat.) 166.

That citation tells the reader to find the cited material (the Act of July 9, 1985, also known as Public Law number 99-68) in the U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News, and indicates the volume number 99 and page number 166 of the Statutes at Large (general laws, a.k.a., U.S. Statutes) reported in 1985.

So you can cite the laws to which you are referring as

Act of (insert date of Act), Chapter (insert Chapter number), (insert page number(s)), Acts of (insert year), Massachusetts.

That allows readers to easily find the law and read it for themselves.

Please don't forget to capitalize "Act", "Acts", and "Chapter" throughout the article when referring to them, as they are proper names. Sctechlaw (talk) 18:33, 27 March 2012 (UTC)