Wikipedia:Peer review/Pond Eddy Bridge/archive1

Pond Eddy Bridge

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would love a great review before hopefully taking this 106-year old (to be 107) structure to FAC. I am sure it needs grammar and prose work, but I just finished a rewrite, so a good sentence by sentence review would help me much. Thanks, Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 18:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments from Niagara

General

• Exact page numbers for citations will probably needed. WP:CITESHORT might be of help.

There's only seven pages (158-164), its not that helpful.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• Use the convert template to convert tons (use short tons instead of just ton)
• You use "PennDOT" and "Pennsylvania Department of Transportation" interchangebly throughout the article. I'd stick to one or the other.

Lead

• "...Lumberland, New York and Pond Eddy, Pennsylvania, United States." — Mention counties in opening sentence: "... Lumberland in Sullivan County, New York and Pond Eddy in Pike County, Pennsylvania, United States."
• I'd mention the roads the bridge carries in the prose and, possibly, move the refs from the infobox.

1870 suspension bridge

• "The area around Pond Eddy was based around the Delaware and Hudson Canal..." — "around" is used repeatedly. Change to: "The area around Pond Eddy was centered on the Delaware and Hudson Canal..."

Done.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• "John Augustus Roebling, and rumors arised that he helped supervise the project personally." — WP:WEASEL; I'd try to confirm what his role in the bridge was or just remove the speculation of his involvement and leave it as the bridge being based on his design.

Its only rumors and he was never actually there.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• "After the communities of Pond Eddy continued to grow in Pennsylvania and New York, the town fathers decided a bridge should be erected to connect the two communities." — Was their two communities named Pond Eddy or one that happen to have residents living in both states? Also "town fathers", "town founders" might be better.

They were two separate communities, as they are today, legislatively. The first one had a previous name of Flagstone, as mentioned in the article.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• "James D. Decker was a local man who was the hired supervisor of construction of the new bridge. He was also the Sullivan County sheriff at the time and former mayor (then-called town supervisor)." — Combined sentences. By the way, which town did he supervise? Change to: "James D. Decker, who was the Sullivan County sheriff and former "town supervisor", was hired to supervise the construction of the bridge."

Done.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• "He lived personally a location so close to the bridge site, locals often called the bridge as "Decker's Bridge"." — Worded better..."He lived so close to the bridge site that the bridge soon became nicknamed "Decker's Bridge"."

Done.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• "...was capable to hold the anticipated traffic." — What was the anticipated traffic?
• "Historians believed that from the beginning of the bridge's life, the bridge was not tolled for Lumberland residents." — more weasel words. Change to: Although, initially, the bridge was tolled, residents of Lumberland were exempted from it."

There were rumors, as mentioned further, its making factually inaccurate without it.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• "However, the town of Lumberland leased out the new bridge and its tollbooth to private individuals, who tolled everyone, including local citizens. When a person to lease the bridge to could not be hired, the town maintained it, and under this format, people paid nothing." — Reworded: "Eventually the town of Lumberland leased the bridge out to private individuals, who tolled indiscriminately. During times when bridge could not be leased, the town retained control and "

Done.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

1903 petit truss bridge

• "...the "floods of the century" struck the Delaware River Valley" — What caused the floods?

Done.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• "Finally in 1926, the mayor of Lumberland, who was a friend of Pennsylvania's governor at the time..." — Which governor?

Governor Gifford Pinchot. Done.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• {{inflation}} might of some use for the old bridge prices.

Someone else will have to do that, I've failed with that template so many times that I stopped using it.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 14:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Went ahead and added the inflated prices. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 03:29, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Replacement plans

• "...had its weight limits lowered..." – Any idea what the were lowered from and lowered to?

Still needs some polishing, but it's on its way to being featured. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 03:29, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

• You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
  • What makes the following reliable sources?
    • "Flood Scene in Paterson, N.J. (movie)". October 13, 1903" For this, we would need more information in order to locate this movie in order to verify. Who is the author? Publisher? Is it in an archive somewhere?

I just found it this morning. IMDB, which is the place I found it wasn't very specific. Lemme check.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 17:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Addendum: Its a 1903 phonograph movie of the flooding from the Edison Manufacturing Company, and I have it backed up.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 17:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

YOu're using cite web to cite a movie? The movie title should be in italics, and I'd really like to see something like Flood Scene in Paterson, N.J. -H36824 (motion picture). Edison Manufacturing Company. October 13, 1903. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• Newspapers titles in the references should be in italics. If you're using {{cite news}}, use the work field for the title of the paper, and the publisher field for the name of the actual company that publishes the paper

Fixed all three that apply.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 17:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 16:59, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, don't freak. I have 11,327 pages on my watchlist, and the number goes up daily, so its not the end of the world to have a backlogged watchlist.Mitch32^{(A fortune in fabulous articles can be yours!)} 17:13, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• Prose
  • If I may be frank, the prose in this article needs a considerable amount of work, more than I thought it would. But I'll just list concerns as we go, I guess.
• The area around Pond Eddy was centered on the Delaware and Hudson Canal, which was constructed in the early 1800s. - What was centered on it? business?
• The Erie Railroad also provided a major part of the community's history, with the railroad running up the Pennsylvania side. - First of all, why did it provide a major part; second, it contributed a major part *Fixed for you as example*; third, with the railroad running is just bad prose.
• After the communities of Pond Eddy continued to grow in Pennsylvania and New York, the town founders decided a bridge should be erected to connect the two communities. - when did you mention there were communities in Pond Eddy growing? And since when is Pond Eddy in both states?

The area on both sides of the river is known as Pond Eddy. Daniel Case (talk) 22:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• The new bridge would make rail shipment of local industries, including bluestone, slate and lumber, much easier of process. - this sentence could be better with better word choice and active words, not passive.
• Historians believed that from the beginning of the bridge's life, the bridge was not tolled for Lumberland residents. - needs a citation directly after it
• Both communities grew large fast, with a new railroad station being built in Pond Eddy on the Pennsylvania side. - with a ... not good again. ;) *Fixed for you as example*
• The loss of the canal, which had a large portion of businesses still, hurt the community financially. - had is better as held or controlled; still should be moved to in front of whatever verb you change to.

• That's all for now. - I have to get some work done today, but you should finish these concerns asap so we can fix up this article. It definitely has FA potential. Sorry for giving you so much work to do! ;) ceranthor 13:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Daniel Case

I did a copy edit from a hard copy I marked up with red pen that shaved about 1.6K from the article's overall length. I hope that addresses most of the prose issues identified above (In general, Mitch, three things for future reference: Omit needless words, prefer the active voice over the passive, and remember parallelism).

On a factual basis, too, the executive of a town in New York is always, then and now, the town supervisor (Or just "supervisor" for short). S/He is never a mayor. Only cities and villages have mayors. Also, I would think that Shohola Township and the Town of Lumberland passed resolutions asking PennDOT to replace the bridge (that would make more sense, and I duly copyedited it as such). Speaking of which, you say Narrowsburg passed one. Well, Narrowsburg is an unincorporated hamlet; it has no government and therefore can't pass any resolutions. Do you perhaps mean the Town of Tusten, whose offices and mailing address are in Narrowsburg? And why would they care so much about the next bridge up the river?

And I must admit I need to see some clarification on this "the stone and lumber mines closed" thing. Lumber is something you can mine? That would be interesting to learn more about.

Lastly, re the "residential home" (is there any other kind?) the tollhouse was converted into, do you know where it is? It would be helpful for your article if someone (cough, cough) who lives closer to the bridge than you do (cough, cough, cough) could go up there and take a picture of it. Daniel Case (talk) 23:20, 8 December 2009 (UTC)