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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Laser brain 16:55, 8 February 2011 [1].

U.S. Route 30 in Iowa

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U.S. Route 30 in Iowa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): –Fredddie™ 04:29, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because my previous attempt went stale due to a lack of reviewers. I've worked on this article for the better part of the last year and still feel it meets the criteria. It's one of the most important roads in the state of Iowa, probably the most historic road, and I still feel I've done the road justice. –Fredddie™ 04:29, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support per my comments at the last FAC. The article still meets the criteria. Imzadi 1979 → 04:33, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - This article has high quality prose and images, is referenced to reliable sources, and has broad coverage. Dough4872 04:35, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dab / El / Img check - all check out. --Admrboltz (talk) 04:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: Just a few comments I missed from my last review. --Admrboltz (talk) 04:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • which connects the larger cities and towns of Denison, Ames, Cedar Rapids, and Clinton. - wouldn't that just be larger cities?
    • 1.1 - 2 sentences start with "East of".
    • 2nd paragraph - it overlaps U.S. Route 59 (US 59) - don't need to redefine the abbrev.
    • At Jefferson and Grand Junction, the latter of the cities named for its location at the junction of the historic Chicago & Northwestern and Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroads,[8] now both owned by Union Pacific, - seems a bit overboard.
    • 1.3 - For 4 miles (6.4 km), US 30 / US 151 / US 218 is a wrong-way concurrency; where US 30 runs east, US 151 runs north and US 218 runs south. - bad sentence structure
      • Will get to this later. –Fredddie™
        • "For 4 miles (6.4 km), US 30 / US 151 / US 218 is a wrong-way concurrency; that is, where two or more routes heading in opposite directions share the same highway. In this instance, US 30 is the main east–west road while US 151 and US 218 are duplicate routes, nominally heading north and south, respectively." –Fredddie™
    • US 30 overlaps US 61 for one mile (1.6 km), crossing the Union Pacific Overland Route in the process, and leaves via a trumpet interchange. - leaves... what?
    • More to come once above issues addressed. --Rschen7754 05:27, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • History - While US 30 was created in 1926, the route itself dates back to 1913, - I suppose that's ok, but although might be a better word.
      • I rearranged some words in that sentence. –Fredddie™
    • By the mid-1930s, it was routed west of Missouri Valley on old Iowa Highway 130. - should be linked earlier, not here.
    • In the 1960–1970s, freeway segments along US 30 started to be built. - awkward
    • Two consecutive sentences starting with "By".
    • The 21st century has seen and will continue to see the widening of US 30 - we don't know this for sure.
    • The 7+1⁄2-mile (12 km) section which will bypass the Tama/Toledo area, opened in segments, the first of which on November 1, and the second on November 25. - comma issues
    • Two final sections to open, from State Center to Iowa 330 and from the Meskwaki settlement to the Tama/Toledo bypass are scheduled to be completed in 2011. - again, comma issues
    • The Lincoln Highway bridge in Tama was built in 1915. It was restored in the 1980s after local officials feared losing it. - choppy
    • Major jcts list - not a fan of the "US 30 exits from itself". Use a colspan and indicate the state line.
      • I'm not a fan of colspans at state lines, so I did something else. –Fredddie™
    • Notes column - no periods unless it's an abbreviation. If you've got two phrases, use semicolons.
    • Throughout - please go through and clear up your nomenclature, i.e. when you're using abbreviations for highways and when you're not. There's a lot of inconsistencies. --Rschen7754 07:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I took care of a lot of abbreviations with the round of edits I made yesterday. I'm having another editor double check this last point. The other points have been addressed. –Fredddie™ 03:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support issues resolved. --Rschen7754 17:18, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. It's a good read, thanks for addressing my comments. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:18, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • "federal money started to pour in and Iowa's infamous dirt roads began to be paved." - two issues. "pour in" seems kinda amateurish, likewise calling the dirt roads "infamous". IDK, could you reword slightly to reflect what's in the article?
    • "has changed to accommodate changing needs" - any way you can avoid the word change twice? (even though they are in different forms)
    • You mention Missouri Valley three times in as many sentences. Any way to cut on the redundancy? The same exact thing happens with Loess Hills.
    • "Iowa Highway 127 (Iowa 127)" - any reason for what's in parenthesis?
      • When an item is abbreviated, it is considered good form for the first usage to be spelled out in full with the abbreviation after it in parentheses. In this case, the abbreviated form for an Iowa state highway is "Iowa" and the number. (Previously, an erroneous "IA <number>" construction was in use.) Imzadi 1979 → 06:07, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes. "Iowa X" is the most common abbreviation used by the Iowa DOT. I added in more usages because the article had very few. Same with U.S. Route X→US X and Interstate X→I-X. –Fredddie™
    • "Four miles (6.4 km)" - if you're doing distance, the numbers should be numbers, not written as words. You do that a lot, and it's inconsistent.
    • "which extends 105 miles (169 km) to Des Moines" - in which direction does it extend? Just curious
    • "it intersects U.S. Route 71 at a signal-controlled intersection" - two issues. First, you use intersects and intersection in the same sentence. More importantly, you only link to Intersection (road), which I'm not too sure is that helpful. You mention intersections several other times in the article, so I'm not sure why that is the first time.
    • "Continuing east, the highway passes through the town of Glidden and passes to the north of Ralston" - can you avoid using "passes" twice? What about "the highway passes through Glidden and later to the north of Ralston."
    • "At Jefferson and Grand Junction, the latter of the cities named for its location at the junction of the historic Chicago & Northwestern and Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroads,[8] now both owned by Union Pacific, US 30 crosses Iowa Highway 4 and Iowa Highway 144 on the northern edge of each town, respectively" - whoa, long
    • "US 169 exits to the south at a partial cloverleaf interchange. It continues " - careful with the wording, as "it"'s antecedent is implied to be US 169.
    • "On the outskirts of Ames are the Lincoln Way interchanges. Access to and from Lincoln Way is handled by two half interchanges 3⁄4 miles (1.2 km) apart." - those two sentences could easily be one
    • "1+3⁄4 miles (2.8 km)" - why the mixture of format? It should be consistent across the article
      • MoS says fractions can be used for imperial units so long as they're used consistently and never used for metric units; I think they are. I actually prefer to use fractions because the exact lengths, measured to three decimal places, are listed in the junction list at the bottom. I could switch the fractions to the three decimal place measurement, but then I would be asked why it's so precise. –Fredddie™
    • Is there a reason Ames isn't linked in the body of the article?
      • Aggressive duplicate link removal as requested in the first FAC. –Fredddie™
    • "The Dayton Avenue interchange serves hotels and restaurants and is a travel stop for I-35 travelers." - that's unsourced
    • "to where the four-lane expressway ends at State Center. Just before the Iowa 330 interchange, the road becomes a four-lane expressway again." - there is no context there. How long is it not an expressway?
    • (skipping the rest of the route description for now)
    • "Over $5 million" - what year's USD? And what would that be in today's dollars?
      • Not actionable: see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/M-6 (Michigan highway)/archive1 for why. --Rschen7754 05:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Inflation figures are commented out for this reason. –Fredddie™
        • What about using the inflation that the rest of Wikipedia uses? I'm sorry, I hardly find it inactionable. $5 million is $154 million 2024 USD) in today's USD, assuming 1913 is the USD in the article. It's that easy, and I think it's useful. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • From that template's documentation: "This template is only capable of inflating Consumer Price Index values: staples, workers rent, small service bills (doctor's costs, train tickets). This template is incapable of inflating Capital expenses, government expenses, or the personal wealth and expenditure of the rich. Incorrect use of this template would constitute original research, if you yourself do not possess it, please consult someone with economic training before making use of this." Until the economic gurus come up with a way to make the template, or another template, work for capital expenses like roads or bridges, we've been commenting out the conversions. (M-6 had them until the comments in its FAC which just closed the other day.) Imzadi 1979 → 19:34, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
            • The {{Inflation}} coding is there and it works, it's just commented out until the M-6 issue is resolved. –Fredddie™
    • Another quibble. The first paragraph of the "Lincoln Highway" section has passive voice in every single sentence. It gets old seeing "was designated", "had done", etc.
    • "By 1922, 334 miles (538 km), only five percent of roads were paved." - I don't get that. Why is the 334 mi mentioned?
    • "and a 17-mile (27 km) southern jaunt through Belle Plaine" - jaunt, really?
    • "along an 11-mile (18 km)" - once again, there should be consistency across units, dash or not, written out or not

--♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 05:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was edit conflicted when I replied, so if something was removed, my apologies. –Fredddie™ 07:29, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments.

  1. "with much of the highway traveling through rolling farmland"—yeah, it's ok as an image, I guess; but cars do the travelling, not roads. No problem if there's no way of rewording this. You have, actually, made a good attempt to give an engaging narrative of physical environment. Nice.
    I'm going to leave this one as it is. Trekking and traversing don't really work as I'd like then to, and I use passing enough as it is. I am not opposed to a better word if someone comes up with one. –Fredddie™
  2. rep: "it passes through the flat Missouri River bottoms, passing"
    Removed one of the offenders. –Fredddie™
  3. "The highway runs parallel to the Boyer River, as well as the Overland Route, in a general northeast direction from Logan." I though the commas went bumpety-bump. Does it work without them?
    I think it does. Removed. –Fredddie™
  4. "At Denison, it overlaps US 59 and Iowa 141, which run concurrently through Denison, for a half-mile (0.80 km)". When I see bumpy commas (here they're necessary in the current order), I think of possible re-orderings. How is this? "For half a mile (0.80 km) through Denison, it overlaps US 59 and Iowa 141, which run concurrently through the town".
    I like that. Switched. –Fredddie™
  5. I used to add a formulaic comma after all sentence-initial prepositional phrase; now I ask whether each one can be dispensed with. Occasionally it can, like "North of Scranton it meets the northern end of Iowa 25." and "At Carroll it intersects US 71 on the western side of the city." But this one seems necessary: "Continuing east, the highway goes through the town of Glidden and passes to the north of Ralston, west of the Greene County line." Partly a matter of taste, I suppose.
    I guess I was taught to always include the formulaic comma. –Fredddie™
  6. Do we really need links for "dirt road", "paving", "expressway", and "bypass"? I'd have thought these were common as rocks for English-speakers.
  7. I've enlarged a few of the images a little: 240px is often better nowadays than the 220 default.Tony (talk) 09:57, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I have my default image size at 250px, but I suppose I can't assume everyone else has done the same. –Fredddie™ 12:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]


I just noticed something myself, and I'd like clarification from anyone. For the sake of subject-verb agreement, are concurrencies considered an it (one road) or a they (two routes)? Examples: "East of I-380, US 30 / US 151 serves..." and "...as US 30 / US 67 turn..." Both are in the text of the article, and I'd like to be consistent. –Fredddie™ 12:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whenever I've written about them, I've used either as a matter of the context. In both cases you've quoted, I'd use the singular (it's a compound name for a single piece of road), but I've also used "The two highways come together and turn..." or "The two roads merge to run along...". I hope this helps. Imzadi 1979 → 13:14, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Looking over it again, I think it reads better if "US 30 / US 67" is treated as a they. –Fredddie™ 21:48, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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