Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Dawson Creek, British Columbia

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[edit] Dawson Creek, British Columbia

It is a town of 11,000 people in northern British Columbia. I believe the article is of feature quality so I bring it here. All comments are welcome. --maclean25 09:11, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Peer Review: Wikipedia:Peer review/Dawson Creek, British Columbia

• support. only 11,000 people is nothing compared with wikipedians deleting thousands of smaller cities and towns with 100,000 - it's a unique city more than just any city. It's a city with a great history, and it's specially good place for bounty huners! There is always gold in that old Creek!
• Support. Great article! Though I might make a suggestion to vary the size of the pictures in the article. Some are a bit hard to discern at their current size. In addition, the fabulous graph of the town's population should be bigger. There is also one detail that I think may need a bit of clarification: Why did refugees from the Sudetenland choose to move to this particular area? Lovely job! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 17:56, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Thank you for the support, and also the comments. I expanded the Sudeten sentence and provided a new reference that has a better description of their settlement. The Sudetens were refugees in Europe (I think they fled to Britain) waiting for a country to accept them. Canada accepted a few of them and since there was still a lot of open, arable land in northeastern B.C. many went there. --maclean25 02:28, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Support: This should be a model for all small town articles that wish to ascend to FA Status. It meets all of the WP:WIAFA criteria, it's free from edit warring from what I've seen, and it's a great tool for likewise articles on similiar subjects. Karmafist 18:03, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
• Support. A good read indeed. I agree with the Sudetenland suggestion though. Quite a well-written article! -- user:zanimum
• Strong Support. Absolutely remarkable! --Hollow Wilerding 01:00, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
• Support This is the sort of article that should be set up as a model for its kind. Well done! A few comments for you, Maclean, regarding the content, follow this vote. It is mostly nit-picking, so feel free to ignore any (or all) of it. :)

• 1. sub-section: History - "the community boomed" - The meaning may be lost on non-Native English users.
• 2. sub-section: History - "Elevator Row" - I cannot parse what exactly this might be other than having a connexion with grain elevators.
• 3. sub-section: History - "Since the 1970s, the town's population and economy has not expanded greatly due to the nearby town of Fort St. John taking most of the industrial development and Grande Prairie the commercial."

suggested rewrite, with the changes in bold:

• "Since the 1970s, the town's population and economy has not significantly increased. This is primarily attributable to the nearby town of Fort St. John becoming a centre for industrial development and Grande Prairie becoming the same in the commercial sector."

• 4. sub-section: History - "and the factory was half built the industrial company abandoned their plans." - Which company?
• 5. sub-section: Demographics - "and its participation rate was 69.5%" - The term "participation rate" is unfamiliar to me, and there does not seem to be anything linked to it here or at the other Wikis. Is there a synonym for the concept/phrase that does have a linkable article somewhere?
• 6. sub-section: Economy - "As city acts as the retail and service center for the region" As city acts? Looks like it is missing a word somewhere in that clause.

• Overall, a shining piece of work. Again, well done!--P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 02:24, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Good points, all of them. The industrial company was Louisiana Pacific veneer plant. It is now an abandoned factory (the kind super-villians make they HQs in). I am amazed that participation rate is red linked. It is the percent of people in the labour force. It expresses the confidence of the population in finding work, whereas unemployment rates just show the supply/demand ratio of work (not willingness to work). Tracking unemployment is useless without understanding if more or less people are actually looking for work. What is that called in the US? Also, Canada has a funny way of calculating unemployment rates. Canada uses a base population of those over 15 years old, whereas the US and the rest of the world use those over 21 years old. So we have a little higher unemployment rate and lower participation rate as not many 16 year olds are employed or even looking for work (especially during the May census periods). --maclean25 03:11, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Unfortunately, economics is not something I know very much about, so 'participation rate' may very well be quite appropriate, and it does seem to be so based on the definition provided here. The Canadian system of describing unemployment conditions does seem rather useful in giving a better 'picture' in statistical terms. Anyway, glad I could help. It pleases me to see really good articles at Wikipedia- kind of a 'buffering the Wikifaith' sort of thing. :) Slainté, P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 15:17, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Great work. Jkelly 02:53, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
• Support, as the article is very good!!! 64.231.163.172 23:02, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Great small town article! Carioca 05:18, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
• Object – the table on the political parties looks terrible on 800x600. Please ensure that the tables fit on the screen in lower resolutions. Width must be set to 100% or <600px =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:19, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I have adjusted the tables. I did not know you could use % instead of px. That's fantastic! Thanks for your help. Let me know how it looks now. --maclean25 07:23, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

    Yeah, it works. I wish I could fully review the article, (it looks good at first glance), but sadly I don't have the time. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:05, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Look what happened to my little baby stub. It makes a papa proud. Gentgeen 19:12, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. Good article, but I strongly recommend a copyedit, as there are a fair number of strange word choices and grammar oddities: over-casual phrasings such as "As for the railway," grammar errors such as "Since the 1970s, the town's population and economy has not significantly increased.", and comma usage and spelling errors such as "As a service center Dawson Creek has a large retail sector that craters to the rural community as well as the city’s inhabitants." -Silence 22:31, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
• Reluctant object. The article is perfect up until the last paragraph of "Demographics", but after that point needs a copyedit in quite a few places. Silence highlights some of the worst examples of this, but I'm sorry to say that quite a bit more is needed. Ambi 01:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Silence and Ambi, you two are correct. However, I wrote the vast majority of the text and have read & re-read it dozens of times. It all makes sense in my head as the errors and oddities just flow by. It has had a few copyedits which made it a much better read, but it still needs a fresh pair of eyes to read through and identify what is odd. But that "craters" is pretty funny, I'll change that now. --maclean25 02:26, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

• Maybe I'll give it a read-through, then. -Silence 02:34, 27 November 2005 (UTC)