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A fact from Van Tran Flat Bridge appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the Did you know column on 3 April 2024 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that the Van Tran Flat Bridge was restored in 1984 using original construction techniques from the 1860s?
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Unfortunately, this article (
reviewed version) is not yet ready for GA. While any individual issue would be addressable within the scope of a review period, the sum of them means the article needs a significant reworking to be GA quality. Once these issues are fixed, the article can be renominated without prejudice. I don't want my listing of these issues to come across as rude; I hope it's a useful blueprint to improve the article.
Pi.1415926535 (
talk)
00:08, 6 December 2023 (UTC)reply
Length and coverage: While the GA criteria
don't have a length requirement, they do require broad coverage. Some potential aspects that I would recommend adding would be the origin of the names, further details about the bridge design and dimensions, why it was constructed, any significant events prior to the 1940 repairs, why the bridge was closed and why it was repaired and reopened, and whether it's been evaluated for possible listing on state or national registers. I would suggest you look for contemporary press coverage that may flesh some of these out; you would be eligible for
WP:LIBRARY access to several newspaper sites if you're not already using it.
Relevance: Conversely, the criteria requires that the article be focused on the topic. The nearby locations don't appear to have any connection with the bridge other than mere proximity and don't need to be listed. (The adjacent park may be worth mentioning, but its months of operation are not.) The location of the bridge is relevant (and could be expanded with another sentence of context), but the mailing address with ZIP code is not. The false claim of NRHP listing on the placard isn't relevant in the prose, though it would be a worthwhile footnote to any information about whether it's been evaluated for register listing.
Support for claims: Some of the information in the article isn't supported by the given source, such as originally named The Motts Flats Bridge. The article claims this is the oldest covered bridge in the county, but one of the sources says
Bendo Bridge was built the same year. Source 6 doesn't have any relevance to the claim about the placard. Various sources give the length of the bridge as 98, 103, and 117 feet, and none of them mention any shortening of the bridge.
Citations: Several citations (4 and 8) have incorrect titles. Cite 7 is
user-generated content. Cites 6 and 9 are duplicate. Cites 1 and 5 appear to be duplicate listings from the same cite; it also appears the site is largely self-published; I don't see any citations or evidence of editorial oversight (that would catch basic errors like the duplicate listing). Most cites are missing information such as author, publisher, and/or date.
Other issues: The infobox is lacking proper handling of other names (using the other_names parameter), plus basic details like what is carried, reopening date, and dimensions other than length. The coordinates are incorrect. Images are in a gallery rather than placed with the relevant prose. One external link is dead, and the other a personal blog that doesn't give any information not already in the article.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
GA review response
@
Pi.1415926535, This is my response to the GA review. First and foremost, thank you for reviewing this article. I apologize for the piecemeal response, hopefully my notes are coherent.
Length and coverage:
Simply put, this is all I could find. For posterity's sake, I re-reviewed
WP:LIBRARY's database, Newspapers.com, and Google Scholar again before writing this response. I found a couple of sources to fill out the history/buttress citations. I'm really having to dig deep on this one.
Relevance:
Removed explicit address
Removed nearby location sentence
Changed to footnote
Support for claims:
Bendo Bridge was built in 1860 but not actually placed in service till 1913 (it was originally built in a separate location and later modified). Every source I've found says Van Tran Flat is the oldest.
originally named The Motts Flats Bridge. ACK!! Sloppy!!! I had FN 1 and FN 2 swapped around, fixed.
I separated the sections into description and history. I made mention of the conflicting lengths.
Cite 7 is a text version of a historical marker (
information on editorial standards). While yes it's a user generated site, the historical placard from which I'm citing is not, I added a note in the ref to make this clearer.
Citations 1 and 5 come from a reputable source (new york state covered bridge society) and a
WP:BLOG justification is easy enough here. They are a nonprofit who works for the restoration and documentation of covered bridges in NY state.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the
Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed
The infobox lists the reopen year as 1984, but the text of the article says 1985.
Done
"The" when used with proper names - A few places throughout you capitalize "The" prior to a proper name (The Motts Flats Bridge, The Livingston Manor Covered Bridge Park). "The" should be lower case for these.
Done, I think I got them all
Location is mentioned in lead (Rockland, Sullivan Country), but not mentioned or cited in the rest of the article.
Not done, mentioned in the History section
Yup - my bad.
This age makes the Van Tran Flat Bridge the oldest covered bridge in Sullivan County - I would drop "age", there's no mention of "age" prior to this.
and leads to Livingston Manor Covered Bridge County Park. - "leads to" sounds odd since it implies this is the purpose of the bridge. You could just say "and is near". Also, IMO I think mentioned it's proximity to the homestead makes more sense for the lead than a park.
Done
1 mile (1.6 km) outside of Livingston Manor. - Change to "Livingston Manor, New York", otherwise people likely won't know where that town is.
the clear width is 11 feet (3.4 m), the out-to-out width is 16.5 feet - For general readers add a gloss/explanation of what these different widths mean.
Done, added footnote
The sides are made of wood, have an opening under their eaves, and at each end of the bridge, there are 4 buttresses spanning the height of the bridge - I think you can drop the last comma since it's part of the same clause that follows from "and at each end".
Two accounts from 1952 and 1974 claim the bridge is 98 feet (30 m) in length[2][5] and 43 feet (13 m) across.[2] - I think you're ok to drop refs 2 and 5 from the mid-sentence and put 5 on the end since these citing the whole statement together.
Done
Associated Locations section - Locations should be lower case
MOS:AT.
was first constructed in 1860 by John Davidson to cross the Willowemoc Creek located on Covered Bridge Road - Minor rewrite might be needed, the way this is written sounds like Willomec Creek is "on" the Covered Bridge Road which doesn't really make sense. Are you trying to say that the bridge itself is on Covered Bridge Road, and also that it crosses the creek? Might just need to reorder this.
Done
5 years before the Beaverkill Covered Bridge, also built by John Davidson; thus making - Semicolon should be a comma, it's a dependent clause of the first part, not and independent clause.
damaged by a loaded truck when it veered off the bridge into the Willowemoc Creek. - Second time Willowemoc creek is linked in the section, drop this one.
Repair of the bridge involved $437.75 worth of materials and $174.80 in labor; with 8 workers being responsible for the repairs - Semicolon should be a comma.
Done
Furthermore, the original queenpost truss was removed, additional laminated arches were added for support and to increase the total load limit. - This sentence sounds a bit off, I think it needs an "and" before "additional laminated arches", and then you can probably drop the "and" before "to increase the total load".
Hey, I'm just a random editor here, but I went ahead and already implemented some of these GAR suggestions, as noted above, so hopefully this'll facilitate the process and make it easier for the nominator. Good luck on getting this to GA btw and feel free to correct/amend my changes! -
Dcdiehardfan (
talk)
04:13, 19 February 2024 (UTC)reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Did you know nomination
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as
this nomination's talk page,
the article's talk page or
Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
@
Gatoclass: I don't follow. The source for the hook isn't a book ref. Unless you're referring to the New York State's Covered Bridges source, which I've added. 🏵️Etrius (
Us)00:53, 27 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Okay, most of the sources state that this is the oldest covered bridge "still standing" in Sullivan County, which implies there may be some covered bridges that still exist but are no longer standing. So perhaps you should add that phrase to the hook and article.
Gatoclass (
talk)
10:54, 29 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Not quite, but I've added the phrase "still standing" to the article for clarity. However, I'm a little concerned that some text in the article may violate
WP:CLOP as it has similarities with the New York State Covered Bridge Society article - although that website doesn't appear to have any copyright notice.
Nikkimaria, would you like to venture an opinion?
Gatoclass (
talk)
04:53, 4 March 2024 (UTC)reply
In the absence of a copyright notice we have to assume the work is copyrighted, and I would agree some restructuring would be beneficial.
Nikkimaria (
talk)
05:17, 4 March 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Gatoclass:, I redid a handful of sentences that struck out to me as close paraphrasing of the source. The Associated Locations and History sections were the biggest offenders in my opinion. I changed an additional sentence that didn't quite meet criteria just out of an abundance of caution. I went line by line and hopefully got them all. If there are any more, please let me know. 🏵️Etrius (
Us)21:47, 7 March 2024 (UTC)reply
No it hasn't. The offending paragraph is the one that starts Sometime after 1958, concrete refacing of the dry-laid stone abutments occurred. Normally at this stage I would just massage the text a bit myself and ask for another reviewer, but unfortunately I am very busy off-wiki right now and don't have the time. Maybe by the middle of next week I will be able to come back and take another look.
Gatoclass (
talk)
02:09, 23 March 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Gatoclass:, I've made some additional changes. That being said, many of these sentences are simple phrases that are difficult to rephrase, and are starting to hit
WP:LIMITED or would require breaking MOS to resolve. Please let me know if there are any additional issues. 🏵️Etrius (
Us)01:23, 24 March 2024 (UTC)reply
This is not a review of the nomination, but the hook is kinda on the meh side of things (being the oldest in a US county is neat I guess but unless it's a really famous county it doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things). Perhaps other proposals can be made here?
Narutolovehinata5 (
talk ·
contributions)
10:40, 27 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Overall: All right. I've massaged the text a little more but there are clearly limits on what can be done here short of just dropping content.
Gatoclass (
talk)
11:11, 27 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Or Alt2: ... that the Van Tran Flat Bridge was restored in 1984 using original construction techniques from the 1860s? same source as Alt1
@
AirshipJungleman29: I agree with Gatoclass that we aren't going to get an earth shattering fun fact from this article, that doesn't mean it can't be DKY worthy. Hopefully, one of these suffices. 🏵️Etrius (
Us)15:33, 27 March 2024 (UTC)reply