Wikipedia:Peer review/U.S. Route 113/archive1

U.S. Route 113 edit

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I have listed this article for peer review because I want to get more sets of eyes on the article to catch major and minor issues before I submit this article to FAC. This article sailed through GAN and was improved markedly through the project's A-Class Review. I think this article is broad, comprehensive, and follows all of the guidelines for Featured Articles, but there are probably some changes that can be made that I would never think of on my own. My goal is to have these potential snags corrected to make the FAC process as smooth as possible.

Best regards, V C 07:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: With just a few minor changes, this is ready for FAC. It appears to be comprehensive; its prose is professional; the images are adequate and correctly licensed; all but the last two paragraphs of the article are reliably sourced (and those should be an easy fix). This is, overall, an excellent highway article. Here are my suggestions:

Pocomoke City to Snow Hill

"which preserves cypress swamps and loblolly pine stands" - Identify the kind of cypress if possible and then link to its page (not the disambiguation page for cypress)? Link "loblolly pine" to Pinus taeda?
- The specific type of cypress is bald cypress. I linked both bald cypress and loblolly pine using their common names, since those names redirect to the scientific names. V C 22:17, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"along the Maryland Scenic and Wild River" - Is this part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System? If so, should the name be Maryland Wild and Scenic River? Should it then be linked to National Wild and Scenic Rivers System?
- There are no Maryland rivers within the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. V C 08:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"at the head of navigation of the Pocomoke River" - Link Pocomoke River?

"at the head of navigation" - I'd consider linking here on first use to a definition in Wiktionary, like this: head of navigation.
- Wikilinked Pocomoke River and linked to definition of head of navigation as suggested. V C 08:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Snow Hill to Berlin

"The U.S. highway bridges Five Mile Branch of the Pocomoke River before the highway veers away... " - Using "bridges" as a verb here causes a hiccup because it can also be read as a noun at first glance. I think "crosses" would be more clear.
- I changed "bridges" to "traverses" because "crosses" is used later in the sentence. V C 08:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Georgetown to Milford

"North of the swamp area, US 113 passes to the west of Ellendale, whose late 19th-century heyday was as a railroad town at the junction of perpendicular rail lines at its Railroad Square." - A town isn't a "who". Suggestion: "North of the swamp area, US 113 passes to the west of Ellendale, which flourished in the late 19th-century as a railroad town at the junction of perpendicular rail lines at its Railroad Square."
- Changed wording to the suggested version. V C 08:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Predecessor roads

"ultimately leading to Wilmington and Philadelphia" - Link Wilmington and Philadelphia? I think this is the first mention of them in the article.
- Both cities are linked in the second paragraph of the Lead. V C 08:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maryland state roads

"was paved with a 12-to-14-foot (3.7 to 4.3 m) wide macadam surface" - Link macadam on first use?
- Linked macadam in that sentence. V C 08:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dupont Highway

"then resurfaced with bituminous concrete" - Should "bituminous concrete" be linked or briefly explained? How does it differ from macadam or concrete?
- Bituminous concrete is asphalt concrete, commonly called just asphalt. Since "bituminous concrete" is more of a specialized engineering term, I replaced "bituminous concrete" with "asphalt" in all instances and wikilinked the first instance of asphalt to asphalt concrete. I wikilinked the first instance of concrete to Portland cement concrete. I thought about wikilinking shoulder to shoulder (road), but there is no info in the article about use of shoulders as a way to widen a road rather than as a breakdown lane or road margin. V C 08:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bannered routes

This section needs in-line citations to sources. The wikilinks to other articles can't substitute for in-line citations in this article even if the linked articles provide the sources.
- Referenced paragraphs in Bannered routes section. V C 08:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

References

The bolding of some of the publication dates jumped out at me. I would consider using "cite web" instead of "cite journal" for the road commission reports to render the publication dates in regular type. (By the way, it took me a while to figure out your methods. I had never seen anyone put the first instance of a citation in the reference section itself. I vainly hunted for a first instance in the main text, then saw the pattern. Your system is internally consistent, but other editors may also find it a bit puzzling at first.)
- The bolding of the publication years is because the volumes are numbered by year instead of by a sequence starting from one. I would appreciate an opinion on whether this violates MOS or there is a more appropriate way of formatting these types of citations.
- In one of my GA reviews last year, my reviewer recommended moving the details of reference citations to the Reflist template to make it easier to read through the text in the edit box. I thought this was a great idea and I have been doing that since in all of the articles I do significant work on. V C 21:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is citation 94 missing a page number?
- It is missing a page number because I accessed the article online and there was no page number indicated. I added the article's URL. V C 21:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The link checker in the toolbox at the top of this review page finds one dead URL in the citations.
- I fixed the URL for the dead URL in citation 20. V C 21:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Images

Image licenses look fine.

I would suggest retouching File:U.S. Route 113 at Maryland-Delaware line.JPG a bit to remove the two big white spots on the road. The cloning tool in image-manipulation software could be used to make the spots the same color as the road adjacent to them. I think the spots are camera glitches rather than paint on the road. I would be willing to modify the image for you if you like. Just let me know.
- I retouched the photo to remove the white spots on the road. V C 07:24, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Other

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 view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 19:20, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the review, Finetooth. I will be replying to each of your points here for self-edification and for the reference of other peer reviewers, since you indicate you do not usually follow review pages. I will contact you directly if I need clarification. V C 20:56, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]