Talk:U.S. Route 80 in Arizona/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Kingsif (talk · contribs) 03:49, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I'll also review this, comments to follow - I've been watching the updates to it as well :) Kingsif (talk) 03:49, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@Kingsif:Great! I've worked for several years on this one. US 80 is my personal favorite U.S. Highway in Arizona's history. I know a lot of people within the US 80 crowd. Right now, things could be going a little better for the old road. A lot of businesses are closing down at the moment and I'm struggling to try and get a historic association started. One of the reasons I wrote this article was to spread the word as well as pay tribute to it and better inform anyone who's interested in what this highway was and why it was important. -MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 07:22, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Awesome, let's try and make it great so you can get it on the main page then? Kingsif (talk) 20:25, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

@Kingsif: Most definitely. I have nothing wrong with doing that, though I am a bit nervous. I've never attempted to write a Featured Article before. It's already been a lot of trouble bringing articles up to GA standard. I'll do the best I can to do the same with US 80. Out of all the roads I've ever written about, this one has the most personal significance and personal connections of them all. I've actually taken US 80 from Coast to Coast. — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 04:58, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

@Kingsif and MatthewAnderson707:. This seems to have stalled. Any way to get it back on the road again? AIRcorn (talk) 08:35, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@Aircorn: I'm also reviewing Matthew's R66 article and we're waiting to fix that up before continuing to not cross wires - it started a few months back so I did expect it to be finished up, but I'm happily giving Matthew some time to get some parts done as he continues to work on similar articles. Kingsif (talk) 13:38, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Okay. Just making sure these aren't forgotten about. Keep up the good work. AIRcorn (talk) 17:46, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Review

Style

Lead

• Lead is looking a bit short for the article; are there any salient points that can be added?
• Made one little fix, otherwise lead is written well.
• In the intro to the route description it says Both loops were bypassed by travelers, should it not be that both loops "could be" bypassed?

Route description

• I wouldn't say that the length was "coming close" to 500 miles and then immediately contradict that. Saying that it was 'around 500 miles' is better, and accounts for variations on length as the route was altered, as the next two sentences mention.
• Now, I can work out that aforementioned 1914 bridge is referring to the Ocean-to-Ocean Bridge, but since the year isn't mentioned in the first instance, this could be very unclear. And since there's no relevance to the year, this is just for artistic flare. There's no need to not just restate the name.
• wrong-way concurrency can be wikilinked
• Is South Avenue 8 1/2 East representing eight one-two or eight-and-a-half? Or something else that is less apparent? If it's 'a half', the symbol should be used.
• Oh, and frontage road could be linked, too
• lonely water tower is a bit too emotive for wikivoice - could be 'single' or 'isolated' instead?
• It's odd that the image of Gillespie Dam Bridge is way above the mention of it (this and the state capitol could each move down a paragraph)
• outer space could be wikilinked, and perhaps given a non-breaking space (I currently see it with 'outer' on one line and 'space' on the next - this will be different for everyone, but I had to re-read a few times to understand)
• The first sentence of the last paragraph of the Yuma to Phoenix section (US 80 crossed the 1927...) needs some punctuation for clarity (or more words, or being split), but I'm not sure where because it's unclear as to where the bends are. i.e.: does US 80 turn north and northeast at the Palo Verde plant or just northeast? Is it going northeast through Arlington, north and northeast through Arlington, or does it travel through Arlington on a different tangent after turning? Knowing these will help correct this sentence.
• Aren't Buckeye/Goodyear/Avondale arguably Phoenix? Well, Avondale definitely is, no? i.e. shouldn't this section end when the 80 arrives in Buckeye as Monroe?
• Commas...
• bannered route should be wikilinked
• Saying that the four routes used to continue straight from Goldfield Road suggests you're going to tell us the new path, which doesn't happen. The rest of the description doesn't use this tense (uses "continued"), so I think it should be changed.
• Diamond interchange needs a wikilink
• The sentence beginning Where the current junction is a diamond interchange also has me confused: what's the purpose of the "Where" at the start? Is the old junction still there or should the tense be changed? The next sentence about the 60 and 70 going east is also confusing - are those roads the same, did they take one each? Note that this sentence could be given some context because it otherwise strays from the topic.
• If the Main Street/287 junction was the 89's terminus in 1951, why does it then say this road continued with the 80 if the route description is matching how it was in 1951?
• Could link "western" by the Tom Mix mention to Western (genre)
• Would be useful to link "wash" (by Mix again) to either Arroyo (creek) or Washland, whichever is correct
• Miracle Mile should be linked the first time it's used - or expand the mention where it's currently linked to say Miracle Mile District, which I think would be better/more accurate.
• I've expanded out the mention of Stone Avenue Underpass, as well as other minor fixes.
• There's a sentence here that says the route went through [...] a few more old motels. As hilarious as picturing trucks crashing into buildings is, this would need rephrasing if I didn't think it was generally pointless to include anyway.
• The last sentence of this subsection notes that Benson had motels like the Miracle Mile... but the part about the Miracle Mile doesn't make it sound like these were important, it has more emphasis on the busy business district concept. Perhaps add a statement about some of the motels being particularly notable?
• Can a road jog? Some creativity is appreciated, but this isn't a novel and authorial language is especially odd in a very factual route description.
• Do any of the sources describe Ciénega Bridge as picturesque?
• Ghost town can be wikilinked
• Generally, the Tucson-New Mexico subsection is well written, likely more than the other two parts of the route description
• Kingsif (talk) 02:27, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

History

• Made a grammar edit in the second sentence per verb usage.
• And another in the next sentence - popular isn't a noun, but I think it was the second "a" that was accidentally put there :)
• Swap the refs for the sentence beginning The highway was ultimately replaced, just for numerical order
• Don't need to link the Gila Trail in the subsection.
  • If linking Arizona, move the link to its first main body appearance; but I feel it's too common here (i.e. it's necessary for the subject) to warrant a main body link. And it definitely doesn't need two links in one paragraph.
• I corrected "Spanish owned" to "Spanish-owned"
• Is the use of the word "quest" needed? This isn't a fantasy game, do people really go on quests or is there a simpler word?
• Refer to Coverage notes for my views on the start of the Background section
• I suggest connecting the sentences In February 1912, Arizona was accepted into the union as a state. With statehood came a reorganization of the Territorial Road system into a true State Highway System. with a semi-colon.
• Auto trail doesn't need a capital A
• Is Up through 1924 a common phrasing? I'm sure "Up to" or "Through" is what's meant, but not a combination of them?
• realigned to the newer alignment is repetitive ('rerouted' or 'newer route' are options)
  • Can connect this sentence to the one after it by either comma or semi-colon, and clarify about the paving - was it paved or were they in the process of paving when the route was changed?
• About the same time frame is also incorrect; I suggest "At about the same time" or "Within the same time frame"
• I've made an edit to the last sentence of this paragraph, but I also ask if the "This" next to Roosevelt Dam Highway is referring to the section from Bisbee to Douglas, or the whole Borderland Highway (because you mention paving other parts before)? If the latter, it needs naming, if not, I suggest saying "This section" for clarity. (Note it should also be "Bisbee to Douglas", unless not all of it was paved.)
• I suggest the list at the end of the Background subsection of the new state route names be separated using semi-colons rather than commas, so as not to mistake with clauses, because they are not uniformly formatted
• Does "Wagon Road" need to be capitalized?
• The two sentences The joint board proposed a new nationwide numbered highway system. The new highways were to follow a uniform standard of shields and numbering. features redundancy; could these be rewritten, preferably as one sentence?
• I also feel that In Arizona, this meant the designation was to be placed over the entirety of the old Borderland Highway route. can be rephrased to flow better; for this I suggest "This meant that the new Route 80 would cover the entire stretch of what had been the Borderland Highway in Arizona." or similar.
• Since "Savannah, Georgia and San Diego, California" has been used before, the state names can be removed from the phrase
• Can we have a ref placed after "The Main Street Through Arizona", since it's in quotation marks and the information by it can be controversial. Also, by "proponents", is there a particular group you're referring to?
• I am wary of parts of this, see Neutrality section.
• Might want to wikilink "apron" to relevant article at the Gillespie Dam mention.
• In the next sentence, replace "it" with 'the Gillespie Dam Bridge' - the last thing mentioned before is the old concrete apron, and so the pronoun 'it' refers to this
• In this paragraph, the prose effectively becomes a list of things that happened in 1930, this can definitely be rewritten; it's weaker. More sentence variety can be used to help improve this.
  • The next paragraph (beginning Paving on US 80 between Douglas and New Mexico) is better, but can similarly be improved.
• Do 200/6 Million need capital 'M's?
• I recommend combining the sentences Of this funding, the state of Arizona allocated over $6 Million for statewide highway improvement the following year. Much of this funding was allocated to the entirety of US 80 in Arizona, for constructing and rebuilding alignments and bridges as well as improving water drainage along the highway with a semi-colon, and changing "the entirety of US 80 in Arizona" to just "US 80".
• Question: should instances of "US 80" and similar have non breaking spaces, to prevent it being split across lines?
• Is "The 1935 act" referring to the one mentioned at the start of its paragraph? Did it give out two different sets of $200 million funding? And, shouldn't they be mentioned together if part of the same act (rather than have WPA in between)?
• One on Stone Avenue in Tucson and the second in Douglas, both providing safe crossings of the Southern Pacific Railroad. is incorrect. You could just change "providing" to 'provide' or 'provided', but I think it would also read better if rephrased. Please expand out the wikilink as well - this is the second time the poor Stone Avenue Underpass has been an WP:EGG.
• "besides" in the next sentence may be better as 'next to' or 'as well as'
• Note that I haven't done all the comma fixes that should probably happen, just ones I find are truly necessary to understanding/not being misleading
• The sentence The completion of the 1946 project meant every section of US 80 in Arizona was now a fully paved modern highway from Yuma to New Mexico includes redundancy - either "in Arizona" or "from Yuma to New Mexico" should be used, here they mean the same thing
• The Tom Mix crash part could be given its own sub-sub-section (i.e. Level 4 header)

Coverage

• Douglas has its own page, why does it get a little blurb in this route description? (I know there's mention of some other places, but those are briefer and are tied to the route taken, whereas this is half a paragraph and sums up the town history with no apparent relevance) Kingsif (talk) 02:27, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
• A bit too much background on the Gila Trail, including info that should be moved to the Southern Emigrant Trail article
  • For my view on what this article needs specifically, which you do not have to follow(!), I would say that the first paragraph of Background before Father Eusebio is to keep, as is the second paragraph after the first two sentences but excluding the last sentence, then everything else I would keep, too.
  • If you can make all this more concise, so it doesn't feel like a history lesson - but a lot of it is important, so I won't suggest anything actionable on rewriting this part.
• Is there anything more about the ASHD not recognizing US 80?

There isn't much to be said on the ASHD not recognizing US 80. The designation simply wasn't recognized as a state highway until 1927, when the ASHD introduced Arizona's state highway numbering system. That's really all there is to say about it and there aren't any further sources to expand this on. AASHO designated US 80 on November 11, 1926 and Arizona didn't adopt the U.S. Highway system until the Arizona State Highway System was finalized in 1927.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 00:25, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Illustration

• Intersections table follows standard
• Infoboxes used and placed well for different sections
• From a skim up and down the article, range of images looks good.
• Pass

Neutrality

• Too much flowery language about things. Can be fixed with prose issues.
• Ooh, I just looked at the section headers... "End of an era" seems too emotive. I know you have a personal connection here, can I suggest this uses a less sentimental phrase? And could you give this subsection a check for similar language, too, it could save us some time.
• Okay, on the nickname part: Not long afterwards, the U.S. 66 Highway Association began referring to the entirety of US 66 (another principal U.S. Highway through northern Arizona) as "The Main Street of America". It is possible the new nickname for US 66 was devised in response to the US 80 nickname. Nevertheless, a friendly in-state rivalry between proponents of US 66 and US 80 existed within Arizona from 1927 onward. This part may need to just be removed:
  • The source is a newspaper from Tucson, which I'm going to go out on a limb and say would be biased to the highway that goes through Tucson. Being from the 1920s, it's harder to have an RS check, but a name like the Tucson Citizen doesn't instil confidence on neutrality to me.
  • US 66 was well established, this is a pretty well known fact; I wouldn't think the entire route was going to spar for popularity with only one part of a lesser-known route. This is my opinion and OR, but it is something that brings the likelihood of the statement (though I acknowledge there is some tentativeness in the article text) into question, which would warrant ideally another source to support it in other cases.
  • The source is from April 1927, I don't know how it can be an RS for "1927 onward"
  • In general, this section of text gives the impression of promoting US 80 over US 66.
  • Parts could be rewritten to be more neutral, as (if verifiable) some of the info is interesting, but I don't feel the first two sentences are needed at all anyway.
    • I also imagine there are likely other sources about a US 80-US 66 rivalry; if not, perhaps it isn't notable enough for inclusion
• Of course, I'll also commend the first few sentences (to the ref) of The boom years subsection for being neutral.
• (I also think that "The boom years" is neutral as a header, by the way)
• Needs attention

@Kingsif: Fixed most of these issues and removed the US 66 1927 part. In all honesty, that section isn't important to the overall history of the highway. Please specify where the language is too flowery though.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 00:19, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I think most of the 'flowery language' gone with your work on the prose :) Kingsif (talk) 04:06, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Verifiability

• Sources look good
• I'll ask if everything in the Structures and attractions list is sourced somewhere in the article?
• Everything else appears well cited in-line.
• Pass on good faith re. the list

Stability

• Is the RfC sorted? Otherwise good. Kingsif (talk) 02:27, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kingsif: My apologies, but was is RfC again? I've forgotten what the abbreviation stands for.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 00:22, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@MatthewAnderson707: A request for comments, generally forming a consensus about changes - I must have seen one for this article, though I can't see anything about it on the talkpage. So if there's no current discussions about making changes, it's good. Kingsif (talk) 04:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

• Question

Copyright

• Check looks clear
• All media free use and look correctly licensed.
• Pass

Overall

• Will continue with Style, Coverage, and Neutrality review - just thought I'd post up the first comments. Kingsif (talk) 02:33, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

• @MatthewAnderson707: have you had a look at this yet? Kingsif (talk) 21:03, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kingsif: I have. Thank you very much for this detailed review, I'll try to get started on it soon as I have a free week. I just got back from Christmas with my family.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 01:05, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kingsif: Finally got to work on the corrections. I started on the history section and made the necessary changes to the route description section.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 00:13, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kingsif and MatthewAnderson707: What is the status of this review? To be a bit blunt, 4 months is long enough to throw away the article and rewrite it completely from scratch. Either what is being requested is too nitpicky/way higher than the GA standards or the article is not GA standard. Can we wrap this up? --Rschen7754 02:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: Sorry, I've been busy dealing with trying to find myself a better job (I just recently got out of college) and haven't had time to work on the article. I'll try and get more work done tomorrow. My apologies for taking way too long to do anything.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 05:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, just been waiting on Matthew, who's been periodically updating. If there had been no work, I would have failed it. Kingsif (talk) 19:52, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to apologize for not getting on it as soon as I said I would. I've been busy the last two days. Hopefully I can get back to making corrections and fixes tomorrow (Sunday the 9th). I'm sorry for the long wait and really appreciate everyone's patience.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 08:01, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Finally got around to doing more work. It's not a lot, but at least its something.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 06:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

@MatthewAnderson707: How's this going? Kingsif (talk) 18:56, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

@Kingsif: Alright. I've been thinking over what I need to do next. There should be more corrections made later tonight. I promise.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 00:37, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

@Kingsif: I hope this isn't an issue, but could you please point out more areas where I left flowery language? I corrected some of this language where I could find it in the history section, but could really use a hand finding other spots. Thanks.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 01:35, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

@MatthewAnderson707: I've looked at the 8 March edits and it looks much better - where are you up to now? Kingsif (talk) 16:17, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

@Kingsif: Currently I am on the structures and attractions list as well as the introductory paragraphs. Those should be less of an issue. Just need to rework the sourcing on the structures and attractions list and possibly the format.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 03:32, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• @Kingsif: I have had the time to make more corrections to the article. I don't believe there's much left to do.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox)

• @MatthewAnderson707: Some great improvements throughout, I'll give the last few sections a read over and see if I have any more comments. Kingsif (talk) 14:23, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

• The last few parts of history look all good now; the list of attractions could again be expanded, but since it's sufficiently formatting here and consistent, it's not holding it back. More improvements are always good, though. Kingsif (talk) 02:14, 29 March 2020 (UTC)