Talk:Bridge/GA2

Prose

• "The greatest bridge builders of antiquity" This doesn't seem like its supported by the body, and seems a bit unencyclopedic. I think it'd be good to incorporate Asia into that too; maybe something like "Surviving ancient bridges include the 1st century Roman Pont du Gard and the 7th century Chinese Anji Bridge."?

Done. Noleander (talk) 03:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• Link cantilever bridge at its first appearance in the body.

Done. Noleander (talk) 03:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• Should the Ashanti be in the 300 to 1500 section? The Asante Empire formed around 1700.

Done. Noleander (talk) 03:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• I'd recommend linking Renaissance in the lede and body.

Done. Noleander (talk) 03:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• The Renaissance in 1500s Europe brought Needs a comma after 1500s. But also, the Renaissance is generally thought to have begun before that. Maybe "15th–16th century Europe"? This applies to both lede and body.

Done. Noleander (talk) 03:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• Link suspension bridges and cable-stayed bridge.

Done. Noleander (talk) 03:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• New breakthroughs in bridge design and construction produced bridges such as Any way to briefly note an example of one of these breakthroughs?

Done. Changed to Their innovations included truss bridges and stone segmental arches, resulting in bridges such as ... Noleander (talk) 04:19, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• I notice a bunch of very short one-sentence long paragraphs throughout the article. MOS notes that "Single-sentence paragraphs can inhibit the flow of the text", so I think it'd be good to merge some of them.

Done - merged 8 small paragraphs into related neighbor paragr. Noleander (talk) 03:39, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• At the end of uses, you can be more space efficient: In the modern era, bridge-restaurants (such as the American Will Rogers Archway or the Slovak Nový most) can be found at some highway rest areas

Those two examples are different, and it is not easy to connect them in a single sentence: The Will Rogers is a bridge over a highway: the restaurant occupies the full bridge (cars cannot drive over the bridge), and is classified as a bridge-restaurant. The Novy Most is a small restaurant perched on top of a tower belonging to a large multi-lane bridge, and is not categorized as a bridge-restaurant. So, they both have restaurants, but only one is a bridge-restaurant. Noleander (talk) 03:39, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• Types section generally very well written.
• You do sometimes have WP:SEAOFBLUE issues, eg " Gateshead Millennium tilt bridge" and "Hörn Bridge folding bridge"

Done. Noleander (talk) 03:39, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• Link USSR

Done. Noleander (talk) 03:39, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• and as a result was reinforced in the 1950s with additional stiffening elements You can remove "in the 1950s" here to save space.

Done. Noleander (talk) 03:39, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• The Cruickshank quote seems a bit excessive; I feel like you could whittle it down to just A great bridge has an emotional impact, it has a sublime quality and a heroic beauty that moves even those who are not accustomed to having their senses inflamed by the visual arts and write that in running prose.

Maybe done. Agree, that quote was too big. However, I'm reluctant to eliminate all quoted words, because the the topic of beauty is so subjective, that it seems improper to put it in the encyclopedia's voice. So, I reduced the paragraph in size, and converted some to paraphrase, but I kept a single sentence as a quote ... that should convey that the encyclopedia is not waxing poetic ... Cruickshandk is. But, I'm willing to replace the remaining quoted sentence with a paraphrase if you think it is for the best. Noleander (talk) 04:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• A notable disaster was the 1876 Ashtabula River railroad disaster, in which a railway bridge failed, resulting in over 80 deaths This example seems unnecessary.

Done. Noleander (talk) 04:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• Any info on bridge collapse statistics outside the US?

Unfortunately, no. I'm always on the lookout for non-US and non-UK data, which can be hard to find when reading only English-language sources. There are plenty of sources that talk about specific bridge failures around the world, but I've found only two sources that presented detailed counts & statistics, and both were about the USA. I'm planning on taking this article to FA at some point in the future, so I'll keep an eye out: maybe I'll find statistics about other countries during that process. Noleander (talk) 04:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• Is "signature bridge" a commonly used term? It seems pretty obscure from googling.

Yes, it is a common term in the engineering world. Several sources use it verbatim. If you search in "Google Books" you'll see the phrase in a lot of bridge books. There are two flavors of signature bridges: those that happened to become famous after they were built (Brooklyn Bridge, Clifton bridge); and those where the city/country tells the bridge designer "we'll pay double, if you give us a special bridge that will attract tourists" (Millennium Bridge in London, etc). Noleander (talk) 04:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

@Generalissima: - Thanks for the detailed feedback. I've addressed all of the items above. I implemented your suggestions in all but a few. Two items resulted in no changes to article, and are explained above. Noleander (talk) 04:30, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

@Generalissima: Thanks again for the GA review notes above; are there any more issues with this article that need attention? Noleander (talk) 13:13, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Everything looks good to me so far. I'll have to do a source review and spot check tomorrow - been busy on and off the past few days, alas! Sorry for the delay. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 16:48, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

No worries! Noleander (talk) 17:47, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Source check

Aaa apologies again for the delay, tons of stuff coming up lately. I got a few hours to kill at the airport, so, source review and spot check too. Most formatting stuff is purely FAC-level, so just for completeness sake.

• Mermigas 2009 is a master's thesis. These are not typically reliable - does this one have particularly outsized academic influence?

Done. Replaced that MS source with a better one. Noleander (talk) 14:57, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• Some, but not all journals are given ISSNs. This should be consistent

Done. Noleander (talk) 15:09, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• Kashima & Sakamoto 1998: E-Periodica is not a journal, its the host. The journal is IABSE Reports

Done. Noleander (talk) 15:09, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• Inconsistent ISBN formatting in books; some are 10-digit, some are 13. This should be standardized.

Done: 13-digit ISBNs provided where possible. However, some pre-2007 book title pages only show a 10-digit ISBN. Although a 13-digit ISBN can be calculated, WP:ISBN says "However, if an older work only lists an ISBN-10, use that in citations instead of calculating an ISBN-13 for it", so for such sources, the article shows a 10-digit ISBN. Noleander (talk) 15:14, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• You link some but not all publishers of websites and reports, and none of the publishers for books. This should be consistent one way or another.

Done. All books have the publisher shown; and all websites & journals where I could find a publisher. There are several websites where the publisher is essentially the same as the website, and in those cases only one is provided, so the name does not appear twice when rendered. Noleander (talk) 15:18, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Spot check

Bennett 2000

• 2 checks out
• 6a doesn't seem to check out - Doesn't mention the Neo-Assyrians

Source says that the bridge was built by Sennacherib, and the WP article on that king says he "was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire ..". Using the king's name alone is not good for the reader. I'll see if I can find a source that makes the connection. Noleander (talk) 15:41, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• Ditto with 6b

Done: made citation more precise. Noleander (talk) 15:41, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• 6c however does check out.
• 9a and 9b check out
• in 12, it does say volcanic ash was used for waterproofing cement, but not that they were used underwater. I assume the other sources confirm this, but it might not be needed.

The Delatte source says that Romans had cements which were "hydraulic" which meant the would cure/dry underwater. Noleander (talk) 15:43, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• 17: Bennett 2000 doesn't include pages 88–89

Done. Fixed typo in page range: was "5,88-89" changed to "5" . Noleander (talk) 15:48, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• 21 checks out
• 28a, b, and c check out
• 38a and b check out

Brown 2005

• "With the advent of the Industrial Revolution" isn't a statement a citation can verify with nothing else before it, so 25 is unnecessary

Done. Moved cite to end of sentence, where it belongs. Noleander (talk) 15:51, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Cruickshank 2010

• 5 doesn't confirm that it's still in use.

Done. Changed text from ".. in use" to "... still in existence". Noleander (talk) 18:27, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• 8 Checks out
• Page range is kinda absurd on 9, but technically checks out.
• 15 checks out
• 70 doesn't seem to check out? The men on the left and right are trusses, and the man in the middle is a train load. and it doesn't seem like it'd verify it properly even if it did show a middle truss

Done. The source text says "Between these two men sits the third, on a plank attached to the inner ends of the sticks. He represents the load of a train on the suspended span between the cantilever trusses. The weight of the man on his span is counterbalanced by .... So I changed the text from "center truss" to say Some cantilever bridges have a suspended span (beam or truss) in the center. Also, added a second source (Adams) which also describes the central span, and explicitly says it can be a truss. Noleander (talk) 18:40, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• 145 checks out
• 102 also strictly doesn't confirm the cite; it says that Roman bridges survive, not Roman aqueducts.

Done: Changed page range from "p 60" to "pp 60-61" (page 61 identifies some of the "bridges" as aqueducts). Noleander (talk) 18:52, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• 178 checks out
• Are the extremely wide page ranges for 213a b and c strictly necessary? It seems like you could find a single source to verify these statements.

Done. That cite was used for three separate sentences. I replaced it with three unique cites, tailored to each sentence ... the three new cites are each focused on the particular sentence. Noleander (talk) 19:13, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Mulheron 2000

• No apparent problems on these.

I would recommend going through and double checking the citations, making sure that each source is actually useful for each of the cites, and removing lengthy page ranges when sources that are just one or two pages confirm the same information. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 17:43, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

@Generalissima Thanks for doing that work ... I'm sorry there were some errors. I'll starting fixing the items you identified above; and I'll also go through all the cites again (I've already made a couple of passes thru them, apparently without sufficient care). I'll notify you when I'm done. May take 2 or 3 days. Noleander (talk) 20:38, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I've completed addressing the specific source/citation issues listed above. I am now going thru all sources/cites for:

• validating accuracy
• trying to make cites more concise (minimize page #'s listed; minimize # sources).

This is in progress now ... will post a notification when done. Noleander (talk) 19:15, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

@Generalissima - As you suggested, I performed a review of the article's sources and citations. I made several improvements: (a) changed the wording of a few sentences in the article to more closely match the source; (b) pared-down the page ranges (of a few cites) to more precise pages that represent the material (a couple of cites referred to an entire chapter in a book ... the chapter was relevant, and useful, but made it hard for reviewers to validate the cite. I changed the page range to 1 or 2 pages that were on point). (c) A few cites had 2 or more sources, and one of the sources was duplicative or unnecessary, so I eliminated those sources. (Some cites still have 2 to 4 sources, but that is only when the multiples sources provide differing insights or nuances on the same topic.). Thanks again for taking the time to help with this article! Noleander (talk) 16:17, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

The changes and responses all seem good to me. The problems raised in the initial GA also seem to be resolved, so I'm comfortable saying this meets the GA criteria and passing this now. Great work with all this, and I hope to see it at FAC some day! Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 18:38, 19 October 2025 (UTC)