Talk:Texas State Highway 121/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Imzadi1979 (talk · contribs) 01:55, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

Disambiguation links check out with the tool, but there are three dead external links that need repair or evaluation under WP:DEADREF. It's also worth noting that the nominator, Awardgive (talk · contribs), does not appear to be a major or recent contributor to the article. Such nominations are allowed, but that can impair their ability to deal with the issues that might arise in the review process if they are not sufficiently familiar with the sources or the article subject.

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
I'll leave prose concerns for a section below, but the lead does not adequately summarize the entire article. Every section of the article must have some summary in the lead, and for an article of this length, that section should be two decent-sized paragraphs. The summary of the exit list is typically considered to be the shortened junction list in the infobox with the addition of the counties list there.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
The "Route history" section is devoid of references, yet full of factual statements that need references. More comments on references below.
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
Where is the history of the toll road? It should be included in the history section. Was Segment 5 completed in January 2012?
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
From what I read, the article does treat the controversies surrounding the tollway neutrally, however I would make sure that any copy editing and referencing is based on secondary sources from the press instead of press releases or webpages from the agencies and groups involved.
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
The article is actually too stable, lacking updates on information stated to happen in the future, but now part of our recent past.
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
A word of caution, but the information template on the description page for File:Business_Texas_State_Highway_121.JPG is messed up.
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
There are too many structural and copy editing issues here for me to hold this article. I believe that the article would take more than a week to revise to comply with the criteria needed to list it as a Good Article, so I'm failing the nomination. Please work on the suggestions and feedback given in this review and renominate the article at a later date. Imzadi 1979 → 01:55, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Prose

The article needs a copy edit and update.
Is the highway signed with "Southwest" and "Northeast" directional tabs? I suspect not, and the directions in the infobox should be updated accordingly. Make a note of the angular direction in the prose, but use the correct direction per the signs in the infobox.
Why are there no locations given for the junctions in the infobox? The exit list table gives locations.
Highway abbreviations are an issue. The infobox and the exit list table both use them, but the prose does not. The best practice is that on the first mention of a highway of each type (Interstate, US, state, Farm to Market Road, county road, etc) the prose should spell the name out in full, omitting the state name where it's not part of the official name, and then the abbreviation should appear in parentheses afterwards.
- The first mention of a state highway is in the first sentence, so that should start: "State Highway 121 (SH 121), locally known as 121 or the Sam Rayburn Tollway, is a diagonal ..." After that point, all state highways can be abbreviated to SH #.
- The first mention of an Interstate is in the lead with respect to Interstate 35W. The link should be followed by "(I-35W)" and then all Interstate designations can be abbreviated.
- The first mention of a US Highway is also in the lead with respect to US Highway 82. Once the "US 82) abbreviation appears there, all other US Highways can have their designations abbreviated as well.
- The various "bannered" designations, like SH 121 Toll (SH 121T) should also be mentioned up in the lead with the tollway name.
- The Bus. SH 121 abbreviation also needs introduction, and where the main highway intersects one of its business routes in the geographic progression of the RD, the letter suffix will need to be mentioned or explained in a note.
The two cities in the lead can have their links piped so that the state name doesn't appear, as the context of the article makes it clear that this highway is in Texas. If they aren't piped, a comma is required after the state name like: "... downtown Forth Worth, Texas, at a junction ..." This suggestion applies through the text of the full article.
Route description: skimming through it, I find that the section is quite incomplete and jumbled. The prose jumps around from topic to topic instead of providing a nice continuous flow to describe the route the highway takes from one terminus to the other. Often, a single paragraph is included that might introduce the topic, noting what sections of the highway are on the National Highway System (United States), what the traffic levels are, and any additional legal, memorial or tourist designations are applied to the highway. Beyond such a summary of the routing, the section should otherwise flow form one end to the other without jumping back and forth geographically.
The highway name shouldn't appear in boldface outside of the lead, and ideally any alternate names that have redirects should be mentioned in the lead as well. The only time boldfacing is normally appropriate outside of the lead is if a business route has a dedicated section and the redirect points there.
Constructions like "Denton and Collin counties" should not have a capital letter on the word in common to the proper nouns.
Constructions like "Plano/Frisco" should be avoided. If the location is a boundary, an en dash (–) should be used to denote that instead of the slash. The same really applies to the comma-separated locations in the exit list table as well. Slashes are typically used in highway articles only for concurrent highways, and possibly freeway interchange names.
The "U.S. 75" abbreviations should lose the periods in the prose to match what is in the exit list ("US 75"). Please make sure that non-breaking spaces are used.
Just as highways have to have their full names spelled out with an abbreviation, so do government agencies. Once abbreviated, the full name is no longer needed. As an alternate to avoid unnecessary repetition, constructions like "the authority" (in place of NTTA) or "the department" (in place of TxDOT) are acceptable and welcome. In any event, the key here is consistency in how the abbreviations are used and capitalized.
Road names shouldn't be abbreviated in prose, which might seem counterintuitive. Please don't abbreviate "road", "street", etc because these abbreviations aren't that familiar to foreign readers. Highway designations are typically abbreviated because we introduce the abbreviation convention, it's consistently used across a wide range of articles through the {{jct}} template, and it's repeating what the sources use, in prose.
Please be consistent in whether or not "Fort" in "Forth Worth" is abbreviated. My personal preference is only to abbreviate "Saint" in location names since that's what most source material does.
Road names like "Handley-Ederville Road" should have an en dash (–) instead of a hyphen (-) if the road connects two locations by those names.

Content

Why isn't TxDOT and NTTA listed as the maintaining agencies in the infobox? Why aren't the counties mentioned as well?
Does SH 121 Bus. have a separate article? If not, it should have a section in this article below the exit list.

References

http://www.texaskaos.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3068 is a blog, and I don't see how it is a reliable source per our policy.
There is a confusing mix of footnoted citations and inline external links. The latter should be converted into footnotes, and all citations should have full author, publisher, title and date information provided in consistent formatting. Online sources should have access/retrieval dates provided to help hedge against link rot.

Overall organizational issues

While they aren't binding at GAN, USRD's project standards are persuasive on what a good US highway article should contain. Following that as a guide, I note the following issues and suggestions that don't affect the outcome of the review, but still should be addressed.

The section headings should be: "Route description", "History", and either "Exit List", "Junction List" or "Major intersections".
There should be one section separated out that deals just with the tolling called "Tolls". This could be a subsection of the RD, but all of the information on how the tolls are collected, assessed and paid should be in one location.
The RD should start at one end of the roadway and proceed logically to the other. The stuff about the tollway segment should be integrated into it, probably as a subsection.
The history should start with the earliest events that effect the modern roadway and proceed chronologically to the present. Any controversies or debates should be included as a subsection at the logical timeframe in the history.
The exit list should follow MOS:RJL. The current project recommendation is to use the various junction list templates to construct the table because they produce a result that complies with that style guideline, and if the guideline changes in the future, changes to the template will update the articles in accordance.
- Specifically, this table lacks a milepost column.
- If there are enough numbered interchanges along the length of the highway, an exit column should also be present that contains the exit numbers. Unnumbered exits can be denoted with an em dash (—) in place of the exit number and a note in the notes column.
- The required table footer is not present, but will be needed for conversion-related reasons once mileposts are added. If the optional table colors are added for concurrency termini, partial access interchanges (northbound exit and southbound entrance), unbuilt/unopened interchanges, etc., then the color key footer has to be used.
- The colspans for the ends of the tollway segment should not be in boldface text. If the table is built manually (instead of using the templates), then that line of the code should not start with an exclamation point (!). That code is used to denote that a cell of the table is a header.
The business route should have a "related routes" or "business route" section below the junction list. If it has its own article, it should be a summary (like on M-28 (Michigan highway)); if it does not, it should be merged into this article properly like M-44 (Michigan highway).
I would like to see the "See also" section added with links to the appropriate portals. If there is one for Dallas–Fort Worth, you may add that in place of, or in addition to, a link to the Texas portal.
Side note, but that footnote for the name is unnecessary. Just make sure that the name is properly referenced in the body of the article. Any facts listed in the body of an article with footnotes normally do not need repeat citations in the lead.