Talk:New York State Route 169/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Reidgreg (talk · contribs) 20:56, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Review to be forthcoming. – Reidgreg (talk) 20:56, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Criterion

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

   Google Maps is unreliable or fails verification for much of the cited information. More reliable sources needed throughout.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Difficult to determine without more sources

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Requires considerable additional referencing work

Review comments

Prose

The prose looks decent enough.

Referencing & verifiability

• Google Maps – is it a reliable source? (See General discussion, below) Also, I found it quite awkward to scroll around to look for visually represented data for verification. Here are some of the things I did not find clearly stated in the Google map (i.e.: which were completely absent or which would require some interpretation and thus be original research):
  • The route starts in the town of Danube. ✗ I don't see "Danube" in either source.
  • It initially heads through a rural town. ✗ Not explicitly stated that there is a rural township
  • The north–south roadway leading from the I-90 exit goes over (i.e.: overpasses) NY 5S. ✓ OK, it does look pretty clear that the exit overpasses NY 5S on the Google Maps aerial photo (given that these are straight-line artificial features), and this isn't something which would be subject to change.
  • NY 169 does not turn northwest until reaching the bank of the Mohawk River ✓ rephrased, good
  • Follows the river through a wooded area. ✗ not explicitly stated in sources; I feel that this requires interpretation of the map photos
  • passes over the CSX-owned Mohawk subdivision railyard ✗ changed to "the CSX railyard" but what are presumably railway tracks over which the route passes is not identified on the map, either as a railway line or specifically as the CSX railyard.
  • The eastern fringe of downtown ✓ Removed mentions of "downtown" in this section.
  • The resulting overlap with NY 167 is a wrong-way concurrency as NY 169 northbound is concurrent to NY 167 southbound and vice versa. ? "2008tvr" confirms the overlap, but I think an additional source is needed for the wrong-way concurrency.
  • follows E Main St into "downtown" ✓ removed downtown
  • The route follows the couplet for three blocks – there is a fourth street on the map, though it is unlabelled so perhaps not a recognized "block".
  • The city's central business district ✗ needs source
  • follow Ann Street north – the map labels it N Ann St, so follow North Ann Street north. ✓ No change needed. As "2008tvr" is the more reliable source, give preference to it instead of Google Maps.
  • a residential neighbourhood ✗ need source for neighbourhood/zoning, can't rely on aerial photos for this.
  • to Monroe Street – W Monroe Street on the map ✓ rephrased
  • city limits / town of Little Falls ✓ City limits confirmed by ref "2008tvr" with the route distance of LITTLE FALLS N CITY LN, which also notes the TN OF LITTLE FALLS which I assume is the town line. Note that Google Maps is not reliable for neighbourhood/city/town boundaries.
  • crosses into the town of Fairfield ✗ Town of Fairfield does not appear in sources.
  • village of Middleville ✓ mentioned as terminus of route on Google Maps.
  • passes by a row of homes ✗ photo interpretation
• "1930map" Road Map of New York, 1930
  • offline, AGF for simple verification of existence in 1930
• "2008tyr" 2008 Traffic Volume Report for New York State
  • Verified 12.42 mi, and distances in the one column of the table.
• "inv-herkimer"
  • I have no idea what I'm looking at here. citation and statement removed by nominator
• "1920book"
  • Could not access the material itself.
• "1970log"
  • page 22 of the list: 169 (Route 5) Little Falls, Middleville (Routes 28 and 29) – Herkimer County. ? This source can confirm that the route existed in 1970, but not that it received its designation in 1930. Perhaps in combination with the offline source.
    • I can't tell if Route 5 refers to the NY 5W in Little Falls or NY 5S at the present beginning of NY169. I don't feel it does much for verification in either of the places where it is used as a citation.
• "little falls quad"
  • This map is used as a citation for five sentences, which describes construction and detours over a period of time, which I'm unable to identify in the source. There are some contours on the map, but determining road grades from these requires specialist knowledge. I feel that this is insufficient for verification purposes. ✓ citation moved up to confirm date only.
• Citations to two offline maps, unverified
• "littlefallsarterial"
  • I have no idea what I'm supposed to be looking at here.
• The table at the end of the article only has a citation for one column.

Media

Four images from Flickr released under CC licence.

General discussion

The big issue I ran up against is the question: Is Google Maps is a reliable source? Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources notes of Google Maps: Google Maps and Google Street View may be useful for some purposes, including finding and verifying geographic coordinates and other basic information like street names. However [...] where other reliable sources are available they should be treated preferentially to Google Maps and Google Street View. It can also be difficult or impossible to determine the veracity of past citations, since Google Maps data is not publicly archived, and may be removed or replaced as soon as it is not current. Discussions I read at the Reliable sources noticeboard vary from Google Maps being a "reasonable source" (not reliable) for non-controversial verification of simple distances, to being "unreliable" as they have not disclosed their editorial practices for fact-checking. Another editor noted that Google Maps is an aggregator, a tertiary source like Wikipedia; and like Wikipedia, this means that they're good for a general overview but that they aren't reliable themselves. What we want are the sources that Google Maps is getting its data from.

Over half of the article's prose is cited to Google Maps (all but one sentence of the Route description section), and much of that fails verification from Google Maps as noted above. Some of the other citations are also to maps and fail verification (easy interpretation by a non-specialist).

I don't see this passing without substantial work, and am failing the review. I hope that my review notes give you some direction on how to proceed. If you disagree with my assessment, I can call for a second opinion. – Reidgreg (talk) 01:21, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Reidgreg: With the exception of the citation that I removed all others seem fine. In citation #6, if you read the whole article its shows the % grades of 5S, when the thruway exit was complete, and when the NY5 arterial was completed. And as to the Google maps reference, most GA of FA road articles use the same map citation for the description. For example, NY 28, NY 12, NY 26, NY 32 all use google map references for the route description. Maybe you should ask for more opinions like you suggested. 420Traveler (talk) 02:50, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Reidgreg: Also the offline map references are used very frequently in GA and FA road articles. Also the images are all fine and not copyrighted, often images are used off of flickr. 420Traveler (talk) 02:59, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

In the reviewed version of the article, that citation wasn't used for the grade. Please let the reviewer know when you make a change like that to fix a problem; don't make the fix and pretend it was like that to begin with, it isn't constructive to the review process.

Although not required for GA criteria, having page numbers for a source like that (digitized spiral-bound copies, not easy to read) would really help move the review along. I don't see any clear 'article' in that source to be read and wasn't going to read through 50+ pages (not when it looked clear to me that the article wasn't going to pass).

I did look at some GAs and FAs on highways. For the ones I inspected, they often used Google Maps sparingly for a general overview but did not rely on it as the primary source for the articles. Google Maps has been particularly questioned over defining neighbourhoods, what constitutes "downtown" or the "city limits", etc. In addition to the reliability issue, there were original research issues such as saying that the road goes through a wooded area – this requires interpretation of the satellite images, which we can't do ourselves, we need a reliable source to confirm that.

For the images, I noted that they had CC (creative commons) licences, which is valid, and checked them on the criteria list. I didn't mean to confuse you, but felt obligated to include that to show that they had been checked.

I am calling for a second opinion. Good luck with the article. – Reidgreg (talk) 12:51, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Ok sounds good either way, and I do understand now what you meant about the pictures. And thank you for your review. 420Traveler (talk) 14:46, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay, one other editor felt that the quick fail was premature, so I'm putting the review "on hold" until May 1 to allow for editing to meet the GA criteria. I will stress that Google Maps may be used for basic distances and coordinates (limited precision) and street names, but is inadequate on its own for other information. Additional sources will be needed. – Reidgreg (talk) 21:09, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm taking another look at the article now. – Reidgreg (talk) 11:45, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

You've made quite a few improvements but I believe it is still shy of the GA criteria. I think you're on the right track, though, and I hope that you will nominate it again after doing a little more work on the article. My main concerns have been with verifiability and original research.

I want to be clear about my concerns with using maps as sources. I found the following at Google Maps Platform Terms of Service, updated April 27, 2020, part 14(C) of Disclaimer (caps are theirs): GOOGLE MAPS CORE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY. INFORMATION FROM THE GOOGLE MAPS CORE SERVICES MAY DIFFER FROM ACTUAL CONDITIONS, AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR THE CUSTOMER APPLICATION. CUSTOMER MUST EXERCISE INDEPENDENT JUDGMENT WHEN USING THE SERVICES. If Google Maps doesn't claim to be reliable, we shouldn't assume that they are. The essay Wikipedia:Using maps and similar sources in Wikipedia articles recommends that maps from reliable sources should only be treated as reliable for their intended purpose (in this case, general planning of travel). I feel that we should also be very careful to only cite information which is explicitly stated in the map, without interpretation or synthesis. I feel that interpretation of aerial photographs is original research because it requires specialized skill – most people simply don't have enough experience perceiving the world from an aerial perspective to make accurate assessments of what they are looking at. Some additional discussion was held at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/April–May 2020 § Second opinion request regarding Google Maps. Most of those editors agreed that additional sources should supplement Google Maps.

I hope that you find success moving forward with this. – Reidgreg (talk) 14:28, 2 May 2020 (UTC)