Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hurricane Katrina

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[edit] Hurricane Katrina

Self-nom on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones. This is perhaps one of the WikiProject's most important articles, as it is evidently a household name inside the United States now. The article itself may be a historical reference for future works about the subject; its edit history is one of the longest in Wikipedia, and it records the chaos that occured on those days.

However, the article in its current form is everything but chaotic: it fully represents the best of Wikipedia, as required by the featured article criteria. It is thoroughly referenced, and is, to the best of my knowledge, neutral. The article also balances the need for comprehensiveness with Summary style, as it spearheads a category with more than 100 articles. The article has finally become stable, as time has passed, and does not neglect any side of the storm or its aftermath. As a result, it's time to put it under consideration for Featured status. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 02:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: As of 15 June this article has 42KB of prose.
  • Very nice. A few formatting quibbles, though:
    • Linking to a section via {{main}} (here) produces something rather ugly in the output. I'm not sure how you could deal with this; do redirects to a particular section work?
    • The "see also" links at the top of sections are somewhat jarring. If you can't work those into the text (which would surprise me), why not just have a "See also" section at the bottom?
    • Some of the external links are a bit too general. Is it really necessary to link to FEMA's homepage, for example, given that the page isn't exactly prominently featuring Katrina anymore?
Other than that, looks like an excellent article. Kirill Lokshin 03:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I'll play around with the template to see if I can make it look all right. However, the WP:MOS is a bit confusing about the see also links; one subpage says to weave them in, another says to use the templates. I'll fix the FEMA link too. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 03:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok, those two things are fixed (as {{further}} did the trick). The Guide to layout says that the seealso links should be at the top of the section, so I'm not entirely sure as to what to do there. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 03:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I always thought see-also links went at the bottom of the relevant text, seeing as they were supposed to be additional reading; but it's a trivial issue in any case. Support from me. Kirill Lokshin 03:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Hurricanehink (talk) 03:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support while laughing at the near-simultaneous nominations. Fulfills all criteria and is another essential article to reach featured quality. —Cuiviénen on Tuesday, 6 June 2006 at 04:07 UTC
  • Weak object - "South Florida" and "Retirement" sub-sections are too short. — Wackymacs 07:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
    • The hurricane brushed by the tip of Florida as a Category 1 hurricane, so there were not many preparations to begin with, when compared to the rest of the coast. The "Retirement" section is already longer than many retirement sections of other hurricane articles, such as Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Floyd, both of them featured. It is a WikiProject standard to place a subsection about retirement if the Aftermath of a hurricane article has more than two sub-sections, as required by criteria 3. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 07:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
      Actually the South Florida preps can be expanded, in content and in scope - by adding the TS warnings for FL and the Bahamas- I'll work on that later--Nilfanion (talk) 09:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
      The point about the retirement is, sorry to say, quite ridiculous. On Wikipedia there seems to be a strange obsession with the naming (and particularly the retirement of names) for hurricanes. This obsession may be to do with the fact that naming schemes are relatively accessible and easily understood compared with physics or meteorology, and it results in a (sometimes outright silly) overrepresentation of the matter in many hurricane-related articles. See talk page archivess for hurricanes in general or for recent seasons for examples. In fact, the naming and retirement are of comparartively minor relevance in the context of a natural disaster of Katrina's scale. The two-sentence paragraph is absolutely appropriate. 87.122.50.75
      The South Florida preps section has been expanded. The retirement section is as stated before unexpandable and standard practice.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I now Support. — Wackymacs 09:18, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Appears to be well written, well internally linked, well sourced and backed up with good images.Luke C 11:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. This article is massive - but also well written. It definitely meets FA criteria. RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 18:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Has proper photographs and well referenced. Lead section is fine. I'm supporting this FAC. Anonymous_anonymous_Have a Nice Day 19:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. íslenska hurikein #12(samtal) 20:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, the article is well written and flows perfectly. It also has excellent use of images and captions of important things such as the actual storm track. --Evan Robidoux 21:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support The article is well-written, has stabilized, and has received a good going-over in the past 2-3 months to bring it to its current state. It definitely meets the standard for FA status. Dr. Cash 21:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Very good article (I enjoyed reading through it). My only gripe is that almost all the pictures are on the right side of the page. I realize this is very minor, but a little variation wouldn't hurt.--SomeStranger (T | C) 00:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Support - You hurricane people are pretty damn good at what you do. Another excellent tropical storm article. The Disco King 13:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Support-Very comprehensive, nice visuals. Tombseye 16:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak object Per Wackymacs. 63.23.19.22 16:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support!!!! Amazing! Josen 16:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. There are a few somewhat short sections that could be expanded a little, but the article makes fantastic use of summary style; the list of subarticles is nearly awe-inspiring considering what I'm used to and should be a model for future work. Everyking 23:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment on the opening paragraph: the list of numbers might be of interest to the Hurricane crowd, but it appears much more relevant to me to highlight
    • location (including a link to New Orleans)
    • date (believe it or not, I've already seen a media reference that put Katrina in September 2004.)
    • something about the scale. A death count might not be needed, but that it largely depopulated New Orleans for several months is important.
    • I'm not sure whether there is a convention about mentioning human damage before financial damage, but "costliest and one of the most deadliest" sounds like it might cause unnecessary offence
    • is there a need for the US reference? I don't think which records the storm set is the most important information in the article, and I think it can wait until after the opening paragraph.

I would like to see the opening paragraph rewritten.

RandomP 01:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

    • Well, the problem is that there is so much to be written about the storm that a one-paragraph summary is simply not enough. All of the things you mentioned are within the lead section, although the numbers can be pushed further below, I agree. The problem is what to "bring up": the location cannot be given justice without its own paragraph, and the area of impact is so broad that saying that it hit New Orleans in the first paragraph is more likely to irritate someone (as users have made their thoughts about this previously on the talk page). Titoxd(?!? - help us) 20:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
      • My take on the lead would be to change the first paragraph to have this in prose form: Katrina formed, moved over Florida, exploded and hit the Gulf Coast during August in 2005. The records should be relegated and the fact New Orleans was rendered uninhabitable should be in the lead section at some point (not the first para though).--Nilfanion (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
        • The opener shouldn't be rewritten, but New Orleans needs to be mentioned further. Hurricanehink (talk) 21:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
          • I've reorganized it slightly, and pushed the numbers further down to magnify the importance of the impact in the Gulf Coast as a region (singling New Orleans would anger Mississppi readers, as some of them have already made us know). Some of the other changes I don't agree to, though, for example, bringing the certain cash figures after the death toll (as it is beyond a doubt the most costliest hurricane in US history, but due to problems in the historical record, it is not completely certain where Katrina falls in the death toll category). Titoxd(?!?) 08:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
            • There are currently 190 words in the lead section before New Orleans is first mentioned. Even angry Mississipi residents will have to admit that New Orleans is what Katrina is best known for. I believe that what many perceive to be the destruction of a major city is, frankly, more notable than that. RandomP 08:47, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
              • I've rewritten it again, although the New Orleans info is now split between the first and third paragraphs, which I don't like at all. Titoxd(?!?) 08:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
                • okay, one minor change that I went ahead and made: I changed "destroyed" to "had catastrophic effects to", and linked catastrophic effects to the main article. Maybe (honestly I'd have to research proper usage here) change "New Orleans, Louisiana" to just be "New Orleans"? I think the lead section is good otherwise though: first paragraph is essentially "yes, that katrina. this is the article you're looking for, unless it's the new orleans specific article we link to" second is about the storm as a meteorological event, third is about impact. As I said, I'm neutral on removing the Louisiana, and I'm also neutral on moving the last sentence of the opening paragraph to before mention of New Orleans. RandomP 09:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
                  • Also added the fact that Katrina occurred in August 2005 to the first sentence.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. This wikiproject Tropical cyclones is producing amazing works.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support --ZeWrestler Talk 16:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Perfect article. juan andrés 17:53, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Great article and topic to make FA. Rlevse 18:13, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. This article deserves to be featured. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 23:38, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong object. This article exemplifies Wikipedia's major weakness. We can get the facts down as well as anybody, as well as Britannica - better, actually, because the ability to cover breaking news. In heavily edited articles, the worries about untrustworthiness disappear due to extensive fact-checking. But analysis still seems to be beyond our capability. At least some of the time, that is, and this article is no exception.
The titles of the two main sections deserve looking at. "Impact," for the place-by-place, hard fact detailing of Katrina's physical force; "Aftermath" for what happened next. The only "impact" described in that section is the physical impact; social impact is almost nowhere to be found. Perhaps one would find it in the "aftermath" section — but the very word betrays that: "aftermath" is, as well, a centrally physical word. How about "Consequences"?
The main problem is the lack of analysis. Why is Katrina significant? Twenty, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years from now — will anyone care about Katrina? (Probably not about the loss of breeding grounds for redhead ducks. Certainly not about the August 26 "F1 tornado" that formed from Katrina's "outer rainband.") What did Katrina mean? Why did it matter?
You see, it's relatively easy to find out the Gulf of Mexico shut-in oil production before and after Katrina, or how many billions in aid were given by such and such a country. It's harder to create a balanced discussion of differing viewpoints in regards to, say, the (at the very least, perceived) inadequacy of the government response to Hurricane Katrina.
Case in point — our section on exactly that. Four paragraphs — that's it. The first paragraph is a throwaway, posing as a lead but instead merely explaining terms that don't need to be explained. Half of the second paragraph is a prelude to whatever criticisms there were; the rest of it, the meat of the section, dances around the issue. "Harsh criticism" is mentioned, but no mention of what that criticism was, or examples, or links to examples, or any evidence for that criticism is presented. The hard fact of Michael Brown being recalled is mentioned — with news story to back it up — but why he was recalled is not mentioned. Brown's resignation is listed, along with a hazy mention of "having received praise from ... Bush" — what, no "heckuva job, Brownie"? Seriously! A key statement by the President of the United States, clearly political speechifying BS later exposed as exactly that and therefore ridiculed across the country, and all we get is "in spite of having received praise"? The third paragraph is short, talks about "raising questions" without actually saying what questions were raised, and includes a punctuation mistake. The fourth paragraph concerns something slightly after-the-fact and has little connection (except in association) to the rest of the section. The picture accompanying the section is relevant — except that it isn't mentioned in the least in the article. Another juicy quote ("George Bush doesn't care about black people") isn't present — but, of course, it couldn't be, because there's no discussion of Katrina's perceived exposure of race relations in this article. The whole New Orleans/urban poor/the Superdome/etc. thing is all but nonexistent in this article.
This is our section on "Criticism of government response"?! Of course, a few sections above, we have a decent section on "Government reponse," detailing, seemingly approvingly — anyway, without disapproval, which is key — all the money, etc. the government gave. Why the two sections aren't combined I don't know. Of course, right after this comes the "Media response" section, which may be even worse. No mention of Anderson Cooper (much less the cult of Anderson Cooper). No mention of reports of people firing on helicopters, etc. No mention of (possibly exaggerated?) media reports of looting. (There's a brief mention of the same in the looting section above, but no analysis is made.) There's a brief mention of the New Orleans Convention Center, but no context whatsoever is presented, nor is any mention made of the Superdome, except stranded in single sentences in different places across the article, unorganized, ungathered.
In short, we need to ask ourselves what Katrina meant and why it matters. To be sure, asking such questions — and, particularly, answering them — delves deeply into point of view. That's why we need to present different points of view and different ideas — and balance them, order them, and present them. It's not rocket science, but it is hard work. For a few days in August, the US looked like a third world country. Does anyone reading the article gather that? zafiroblue05 | Talk 01:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
(P.S. A small quibble: the Chandeleur Islands picture should be rearranged so that the "before" is on the left, as is customary in the English language. A larger quibble: why is there exactly — only — one picture of a human victim in this most human of tragedies?)
Why did Katrina matter? It is something Wikipedia cannot answer. Why? It is something that is the job of scholars, and our No original research policy explicitly disallows it:
Original research is a term used on Wikipedia to refer to material added to articles by Wikipedia editors that has not been published already by a reputable source. In this context it means unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, or arguments that appears to advance a position or, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation." (emphasis mine)
Also, the first line in the Criticism of Government response says:
Main article: Criticism of government response to Hurricane Katrina
It is impossible to talk about such a subject in the main article in a way that does not shatter the Article size guideline. We strived to achieve the preferred summary style, which is truly a balancing act.
No mention of looting? Did you try going into the subarticles prominently detailed in the article? It certainly is there. Titoxd(?!?) 02:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
That's exactly the problem. Subarticles are subarticles. This nomination is to feature Hurricane Katrina, not the subarticles. No, I didn't read each subarticle top to bottom, as I did the main one. They're different, separate articles. My criticisms may well be better developed in certain other articles, but in no way is the important information "prominently detailed" in the article. You realize we have more words on the mere preparations for the storm than the criticism of government response and media involvent combined? Why do we include vast sections on minute details of the storm itself while neglecting its significance? Why does the reader have to go to subarticles (linked at the bottom of the page) to get to the important stuff but is presented right at the top, pages and pages worth of what is near trivialities in respect to the scope of the storm? As to the original research, a discussion of significance — different viewpoints, different ideas, properly attributed and supported — does not mean putting one's own ideas into the article. zafiroblue05 | Talk 03:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with the strong object. Certainly, we could go into more detail, but that's the whole purpose of the article size attribute and the MANY sub-articles to this topic. The sub-articles support this article very well, and if we put every single minute detail about the criticisms to the government response into this article, we'd have an article that would be way too long that no one would read. There's also an overwhelming amount of information about this topic as well, but a lot of it is POV blogs, conspiracy theories, and extreme liberal or conservative views on the topic, which is best left out of the encyclopedia. It's best to produce an article in the middle, with little conspiracy theory talk and extreme views. Dr. Cash 18:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
"Certainly we could go into more detail," you say. Tell me this: why do we go into such fine details with regard to the physical impact of the storm, but the social impact - the media, the criticism of the government, the race relations; that is, what is most significant about the topic - is relegated to subarticles? Answer: because it's so much easier to document statistics than analyze, organize, and clearly and NPOV-ly present difficult social issues. But the fact that a proper article on this topic would be difficult to write does not excuse the failings of this current article. In short, this is not Wikipedia's best work; not even close. So it shouldn't be featured: period, the end. zafiroblue05 | Talk 21:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually the most important section in the article is the "Storm history" - that is the storm itself after all. And its not relegated to subarticles, its expanded in subarticles (the physical impact is also expanded in the subarticles, particularly the New Orleans info). Some specific detail about physical damage may be slightly excessive (the F1 tornado for example) but I think that is more significant to the story of Katrina than the fact there were racism allegations in photos showing looting/collecting stuff. The most important thing to cover in this article is the storm itself, the title is "Hurricane Katrina" after all not "Social effects of Hurricane Katrina"... The physical impact is an aspect of the storm, the social aspect is more an aspect of American society than the storm IMO.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:09, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
This article isn't titled "Storm history of Hurricane Katrina" either. It comes down to which subarticle, which section, you want to give focus to. Currently, the vast majority of the article centers of the storm history, while the larger significance is largely ignored. I think that's ridiculous, and that's why I continue to object. zafiroblue05 | Talk 06:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes it isn't that article either and the article doesn't give much weight to that section (its expanded in a subarticle, like everything else). What I meant by saying the history is the most important section is that without that section the article is "Effects of Katrina" not "Katrina". I think the article does a good balancing job between physical and social impact. IMO $5 million of damage is more pertinent to the story of the storm itself than the cult of a journalist.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. That strong object above was well written, and that is to his/her credit, but this article is good. It is very informative, it has alot of good in depth detail, and it covers mostly everything that anyone would want to know about the subject. I don't know if the person who strongly objected read the subarticles, but this article can hardly just be labeled a "novel narrative or historical interpretation". --Makaio 02:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I did not read the subarticles, because the article nominated is not the subarticles. Those are separate articles. As to it covering everything anyone would want to know about the subject, well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. :) zafiroblue05 | Talk 06:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - wonderful article! —Khoikhoi 00:23, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - very well done. Thanks to all those that contributed. CoolGuy 21:04, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - Great article. -- RattleMan 23:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: Excellent article, well written and well referenced. I can see where some people may need more information but I thought that the subarticles did a decent job of covering that. The article is long enough as it is. --Nebular110 05:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support This is an excellent article with great and well referenced information. Aeon 19:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Aesthetic object - why are there five different image widths, and why are most images on the right but only a few on the left? And, why have a before and after shot with the before on the right and after on the left? This is totally counter-intuitive to most people. And also a question - does anyone share my concern at frequently seeing lots of people who are part of a wikiproject leaving support votes on articles produced by their wikiproject? I really don't think it should happen. It looks like the project is trying to railroad nominations through. Worldtraveller 21:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
The before/after shot has been fixed (the NASA source image was the "wrong" way round). Vote-stacking shouldn't really be an issue if FAC is working correctly, its certainly not the intent of the editors of the article or the wikiproject to railroad this (or any other article) through; its a lot of "me too" voting when that happens.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I count 17 supporters from outside the WikiProject, so "railroading" is probably the least accurate way to describe it. Everything else has been fixed, and all images now are 250px (with the exception of the initial image, which should be small to avoid getting a narrow column of text in the Storm history section, and another image which is only 240 px originally).Titoxd(?!?) 21:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
So, you'd have about 14 votes from members of the wikiproject. This really does skew the discussion significantly - a pile of supports like that will certainly make people reading the nomination think there can't be very much at all wrong with the article and may dissuade oppose comments. Given that this is a nomination 'on behalf of' the wikiproject, members of the wikiproject really should not be voting. At the very least they should be declaring that they are members of the project.
The article still has one random image on the left. It's something of a matter of personal choice but I've always thought alternating left-right looks way better than all images on the right. Worldtraveller 20:32, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Note, I've refrained from voting here, and I've edited the article significantly. The wikiproject sup's are from people who joined the project as "interested in hurricanes" and as such are voting on their interests, certainly not encouraged to vote support by the rest of the project. That's no different than any other "popular" subject, the difference is the 'cane-fans tend to be in the wikiproject. I've moved the images (except for the storm track, that's opposite the Katrina template) to the right hand side.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, I think the very least that can be done is that they should declare that they are members of the wikiproject. It does look suspicious when half the votes are coming from people in whose name the nomination is supposedly made, but they aren't being forthcoming with that information.
As for my objection, I apologise if I'm being a pain in the arse but I do believe that looking good is an important thing. The three tables of different widths that start the article really don't look very good. Could they be made the same width, or moved to different parts of the article? Worldtraveller 14:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I changed from using the Katrina template to just using its content (stops the repetition of Hurricane Katrina 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and two similar pictures). I'm not convinced of the point to the intensity table myself but I don't fancy a lame edit war over it.--Nilfanion (talk) 16:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - a great article considering the fact it was one of the most chaotic and difficult articles ever created for what turned out to be one of the defining moments in American - and world - history. CrazyC83 22:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - awesome article for such an important event, especially considering how chaotic the article was for the first few months. It's a little short, but otherwise it looks pretty good to me. bob rulz 15:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Sicerely folks. I think this is taking too long. It has too much supporting votes that I think it should have been an FA already. Leave all your replies on my talk page. juan andrés 00:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
    FAC is not a majority vote. Titoxd(?!?) 00:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Good answer, but it drives me to another question: If it is not a majority vote, what is an FAC? juan andrés 17:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
      • It's a discussion, which aims to arrive at consensus. The aim is to produce articles as nearly flawless as possible, so 99 support votes would not override one object that points out a flaw. Worldtraveller 19:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
        • But what if the support votes don't agree that the alleged flaw is in fact a flaw? Everyking 10:56, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
          • What I mean is, simple 'support' comments in isolation should not override actionable objections. If the supports are accompanied by discussion, then that's all just part of reaching consensus. Worldtraveller 11:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support to the max!!! Tobyk777 18:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly object, per Zafiroblue05. The inadequate government response is one of the most significant aspects of Katrina, but the article does not cover it adequately. What there is seems oddly truncated. For example, it says that "video footage and transcripts ... indicate that federal officials did inform Bush and Chertoff of the danger of levee breaches", but it never said why this was an issue: that Bush had earlier claimed that no one could have predicted the breaches. Rebutting criticisms without otherwise acknowledging them could be seen as POV. In any case, the lack of coverage of controversial aspects introduces a POV in itself. Wikipedia articles should be neutral, not neutered. In my view, the article fails to meet FA criteria 2b (comprehensiveness) and 2d (neutrality). -- Avenue 12:58, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • The restored paragraph (see below) deals with that issue to what I think should be to everyone's satisfaction. Titoxd(?!?) 07:36, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
      • It does somewhat improve the coverage of these issues, but not enough. The social/political issues surrounding Katrina are among the most notable features of the storm, setting it apart from many other major hurricanes, and they're not summarised well by the current "Criticism of government response" section. There needs to be some mention of concerns over long-term clean-up, not just the emergency response. The text also contains a peculiar selection of material. Apart from the specific point I raised above (about levee breach notification), the last paragraph on "a minor scandal" doesn't belong in this summary section. There have been wide-ranging concerns about corruption and waste in clean-up contracting (see e.g. [1] [2]), and reporting one minor scandal without mentioning any other issues is misleading. -- Avenue 12:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
        • I just reviewed the article again, hoping there might have been some improvement in the absence of further discussion here. But no. So I'll reiterate my strong objections to this being made a featured article in its current state, due to its poor coverage of some of the most notable aspects of the subject. Perhaps this sums it up best; in the lead section, the following sentence details virtually every possible variant of Katrina's position in the 2005 season: "Katrina was the eleventh named storm, fifth hurricane, third major hurricane, and second Category 5 hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic season." Meanwhile the preamble contains absolutely no mention of any failings in the preparation for the storm, the emergency response, or the recovery efforts following Katrina. According to WP:LEAD, an article's lead section should include "a mention of the topic's most prominent controversies". This one does not. -- Avenue 14:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Object. Image:Kanyebush.jpg and Image:Geraldo-Rivera-Katrina-Aftermath-FNC.jpg need fair use rationale on their image description pages. See Help:Image_page#Fair_use_rationale and the description pages for the images at Sunset Blvd. (1950 film) if you're not sure what to write. This might be particularly important for this article because of the high number of free-licensed images available (some of which are already included). Extraordinary Machine 15:57, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Big article, but is comprehensive and up to date with a good flowing text that is orderly and easy to read. This footnoting style is one I really do not like however, although I do recognize that in keeping with the new cite.php style, the editors on this page are simply following protocol. What I mean is if you simply look at the first few paragraphs, you see, as the footnote, the number "1" repeated over and over...and then have to figure out if this is a footnote (which is isn't since real footnotes are numerical from first to last) or more like a reference note. Regardless, that is an argument for another page, just wanted to bring it up. Excellent job.--MONGO 20:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong object The "criticism of government" section does not make any reference to state and local governments or to Louisiana Governor Blanco and New Orleans mayor Nagin. In fact, both Blanco and Nagin are only referred to once in the entire article. Seems odd considering the roles they played during the hurricane. In fact, Blanco is never even referred to as a governor. In the "Looting and violence" section she is just quoted as Kathleen Blanco with no title. --Jayzel 01:52, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
  • P.S. there is no mention of the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, et al. in the "preparations" section and not a word about the state of Louisiana and Mississippi and the city government of New orleans in the "government response" section. In fact, this entire article leaves the reader to believe the Federal U.S. government controls all local, Parish, and state decision-making. --Jayzel 02:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Actually, someone had vandalized a paragraph out of it, as it surely had that information. I've restored it now. The states info is in the preparations section too, so I don't see what you're saying...? Titoxd(?!?)
      • The paragraph is an improvement, but I have some agreement with the concerns of poster Avenue. Re: my comments about the "preparations" section, the section is broken down into Florida, New Orleans, and the Gulf Coast. First, as Louisiana and Mississippi were the hardest hit areas, why is there no discussion about how these state and local governments prepared for the storm? Second, the "Gulf Coast" section just talks about President Bush and the National Weather Service. These comments should be listed under a "Federal Government" header. You also haven't acknowledged my concerns re: local and state "reponse" to the action. Lastly, I noticed in the "New orleans impact" section there is reference to 6 dead found in the Superdome with a citiation to an article called Reports of anarchy at Superdome overstated. This story has extremely important information that is left out of the article. It talks about all the extreme claims of rapes and murders that were falsely alleged to have taken place at the Superdome and Convention Center by both the mayor and police chief of New Orleans. It was these erroneous claims that began the backlash about the government's response to the hurricane, therefore this should definately be highlighted in the article. This info can either be placed in the "critcism of government section" of the "media involvement" section. One final, minor note: I noticed there are a number of duplicate wikilinks throughout the article. Names and such wikilinked should only be linked to once in an article and at the time they are first mentioned. Someone needs to comb through the article and fix this issue. --Jayzel 15:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Oh, a final note. Don't be concerned about the article's length. Wikipedia suggests a 50kilobytes maximum on articles, but it is only a suggestion. There are many current featured articles that are between 50-80k in length. It is more important to see to it that all major issues are addressed at least briefly. --Jayzel 15:45, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comments.
  1. I'm not sure it's "stable" enuf to be an FA. For example, I am assuming (well, on some levels more 'hoping') that the still changing circumstances are the reason that it is in such sharp disagreement with New Orleans, Louisiana regarding the early 2006 city population (100K vs 200K).
  2. This partially goes a bit beyond this article to FAC process, but how can we at WP:FAC really determine how complete an article is when the topic is so big and complicated? Due to a slow day at work last week I was fortunate enuf to be able to spend 2-3 hours reading much of the 520-page Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina[3], and some things don't appear to be covered in the article, or it's sub-articles. Probably one of the most important being that Chertoff named Brown PFO even tho' Brown had no PFO training, yet there were other PFO-trained candidates available: "Finding: The Secretary should have designated the Principal Federal Official on Saturday, two days prior to landfall, from the roster of PFOs who had successfully completed the required PFO training, unlike FEMA Director Michael Brown. Considerable confusion was caused by the Secretary’s PFO decisions".
  3. A related point: Overall, the article seems heavily influenced by the US media pack-mentality to blame Brown more than Chertoff (despite the fact that searching the Final Report file for "the secretary should have" gets 9 hits (4 actual points, all in various "Findings"), versus zero for "brown should have" or "director should have"), while the media in turn (IMHO) was heavily influenced by Bush administration actions designed to make Brown a scapegoat (despite being in contrast to their words to the contrary).
  4. I wish I could remember what I read where in the various sub/related articles, but several need good copyediting, and some seem to conflict. For example one says there was 'virtually no wind or rain damage to NO' (blaming all damage on the flooding), while others say there was significant wind damage several states further inland--hard for me to believe NO suffered less wind damage from Katrina than say Kentucky or New York. Niteowlneils 04:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
  • On point 1, there were about 160K nighttime residents on Jan 1 [4], and 210K on Feb 28-29 [5]. I don't believe there would have been only 100K in mid February, as the Hurricane Katrina article currently states. -- Avenue 13:14, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
    • The figure came from the bipartisan report which states (on page 9) "at the time of our writing... barely 100K". It does seem on the low side that though - "approximately 200,000" would be appropriate for the article IMO.--Nilfanion (talk) 15:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
      • I have gone ahead and changed this. -- Avenue 14:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support --DragonWR12LB 23:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Sweet article. Well referenced, and neat. ....(Complain)(Let us to it pell-mell) 07:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Very well done. KillerChihuahua?!? 00:07, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
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