Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of Alaska/archive1

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[edit] History of Alaska

I paid attention to the tips given in the previous tips in the FACs and Peer Reviews my previous state history articles have gone through. I think all the comments at peer review have been addressed and this article meets all the criteria for FA-ship now. The people in #wikipedia majorly helped me out with the pictures, and I thank them for that. Toothpaste 07:10, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

• The beginnings of the intro and the first section are identical, or close to it. Everyking 08:21, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Fixed! Thanks. Toothpaste 08:32, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

• Abstain | Object per nixie; I didn't check the history. Its too new. Support User:Nichalp/sg 08:43, September 1, 2005 (UTC) See below:
• Comment, I think the article is great, but it was only created on the 25th of last month, I can think of one article that was passed over recently due to "freshness", should that criteria also be applied here?--nixie 08:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment the age of an article isn't an actionable objection. We have several featured articles that have spent very little time being edited before they were nominated and promoted. However, while I don't consider an article's age a valid objection, an article's stability is a valid objection (but I don't see that being a problem here like it was for the Papal progression earlier this year). slambo 16:06, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
    • If its a collaboration, then there shouldn't be a problem with the time period. But in this case, the bulk of the material was added on 30-Aug, and submitted here two days later. And a huge chunk of the material was added by Toothpaste. If I can get an assurance from a resident of Alaska that this is fine, I'll withdraw my objection. User:Nichalp/sg 05:39, September 2, 2005 (UTC)
      • I have to ask why we need permission from a resident of Alaska to feature this article. Rob Church ^{Talk | Desk} 10:49, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
• Object. Quite good, but I have a few open questions and points I think could be improved: Support; it's now good enough for me. The "contemporary" section could still profit from some more work, and I still don't know whether Cook "bought pelts in Alaska at relatively expensive prices" or "sold pelts in Canton at relatively expensive prices" (or maybe both?). On the Bering Land Bridge and the "original" location of settlement: did you mean "initially" instead of "originally"? Also, there is now some duplication between the sub-section on "the transfer" and the beginning of the section "department & district". Lupo 10:48, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
  1. "Lead": Intro is too "choppy"; third sentence mentions "this route", which refers to the Bering Land Bridge, but the intervening mention of eventual settlement breaks the connection. Vitus Bering appears out of nowhere. Last sentence is a jumble of assorted factoids. Exxon Valdez mentioned in an unrelated run-on sentence, should be a separate sentence, if anything. "spilling ... over 1,100 miles"—"of coastline"? Or surface? But then it would need to be an area measure... Lupo 08:49, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  2. "Pre-history": should be titled "prehistory". If the Coastal indians had originally settled in Canada, how could they have come over the Bering Land Bridge? (Where in Canada anyway?) Does the migration of the Tsimishian in the 1800s really belong into a section on prehistory? (Darn, that's back!) Do the descriptions of the society of these people really belong here or rather into articles on these tribes? The mention of capitalist society strikes me as very strange (I'm not saying it's wrong, but I connect the word "capitalism" with 19th century and later theory of economics, not exactly with anthropology). Word choice: "existed in temperatures of -50°F"; I would use "persisted" or "survived". Who settled the Aleutian Islands? (I know about the Aleuts, but are they connected to some other mainland tribe, and where did they come from?) Lupo 08:49, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  3. "Russian Alaska": when did the first Russians arrive? It wasn't Vitus Bering! Did Cook sell or buy the pelt for "unusually high prices"? Who is this Shelikof character, and is "Grigor" indeed the accepted transliteration? Normalize spelling to "-ov": Shelikov, Baranov. (Other articles use that spelling.) Rezanov gets one mention and even an image, but the article makes Baranov appear far more important. "The Aleut population began to increase"—"again", I suppose. What happened to the settlements of Mikhailovsk and New Archangel? Do they still exist, and if so, what's their name now? Were there any non-Russian settlers during that period? Did all Russians leave when the U.S. bought Alaska? What was the population during the Russian settlement? Lupo 08:49, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
     • Much better now! Lupo 10:48, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
  4. "Department and District": "between 1867 and 1884 the name was changed to the Department of Alaska", and later "between 1884 and 1912 was renamed the district of Alaska"—is it unknown when exactly these name changes took place? Why is "the Interior" capitalized? Lupo 08:49, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  5. "Alaska Territory": why did the bowhead whale population rebound? Lupo 08:49, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  6. "World War II": could use an introductory sentence, it currently jumps right in. What is a "banzai charge"? How many people died at Attu? Lupo 08:49, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  7. "Good Friday Earthquake": needs a better title, half of it is about completely unrelated stuff. What does this mean: "an Alaska Steamship Company was lifted by a huge wave over the docks and out to sea, but most hands survived"—a company was lifted? Can we get rid of the red tint in Image:GoodFridaySeaLevelChange-NOAA.jpg? (Fixed that last one myself.) Lupo 08:49, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  8. "Contemporary": as always, writing about the recent history is the most difficult. Nothing of interest in the political world of Alaska after 1980? Some parts of this read a bit out-of-place (USS Alaska, Iditarod race). I think the Exxon Valdez oil spill is over-emphasized, more interesting than the clean-up would have been its political effects. What did politicians and legislators do to try to avoid such an incident in the future? Lupo 08:49, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  9. "Endnotes" should be renamed to "references".
• Lupo 08:49, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • Did you use any books to write this article? If so, they should be given in the "references" section. Lupo 07:00, September 2, 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Nothing in the article is bad, few complaints remaining other than the age of the article (would it appease the objector if we travelled to the past in order to create this earlier?). - A Link to the Past (talk) 21:20, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
• Support --Phroziac ^(talk) 21:34, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
• Support Great pictures and an overall great article. The fact that the article was created recently shouldn't even matter. Redwolf24 (talk) 01:44, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Toothpaste has done good work on past articles, and I see nothing but what makes Toothpaste a great of a Wikipedian. As for time, I am not worried about that, since I felt the same way as Toothpaste did when I created Belarusian Republican Youth Union and nominated it for FAC days later. It does not matter how much time the article has spent on here, if it meets WP:WIAFA, it deserves to be a FA. Time is not of the essence, and nor it is a requirement to be a FA. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 06:02, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
• Support Absolutely great article. -- AlexR 13:47, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
• Object. Lead section is poorly written. No mention of Alaska's system of political subdivisions, which is unique in the United States. Insufficient references (must use something other than websites), and the ones that are there [references] are poorly formatted (I want to see what the source is without mousing over the links). Statehood and an earthquake have nothing to do with each other, they should not share a section title. This is indicative of a fundamental problem with this (and similar) articles -- the article suffers because historical eras and historical events are mishmashed together. I also object to the apparent bloc voting going on here. - Bantman 01:35, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

I fixed it up based on your objections. What do you think now? Toothpaste 01:53, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I still feel that the period from statehood on is poorly organized, and that the lead section could be much better written. Sorry for the delay in response. - Bantman 03:38, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Comprehensive and well-written. Disclaimer: I am a member of WP:FAD. Andre (talk) 02:24, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

• Alaska-sized support. It's coherent, accurate, and contains no red links! --Merovingian (t) (c) 08:03, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
• Baked-Alaska support. It's perfect in every way. —RaD Man (talk) 19:56, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
• Denali-sized support. Well written, all. References are well done, picture placement is good, stable, and proof that an article doesn't have to have been edited for a year to be a good example of work at Wikipedia. -[[User:Mysekurity|Mysekurity]] 21:29, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Coincidental, or is The History Channel watching Wikipedia? Today the History Channel ran a 3-hour long special on the history of Alaska prior to statehood. I turned it just as they had finished the Russian Era, seeing it on TVGuide.com. I added it as a video reference to the article. By the way, Lupo, the article already did have book references, even before I added the four extra ones. They're in the notes section. Toothpaste 01:31, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

• Object—I can't agree with Toothpaste's view that it's well written. Let's take an example of the prose:

'The coastal Indians believed that fish and animals gave themselves willingly to humans, and strove to honor their sacrifice. The believed that the bones of a consumed salmon should be returned to the river where they had been caught, to allow for reincarnation, or else the fish would return deformed. They lived in a capitalist society that allowed private ownership. Each household owned anything they had made themselves, while the clan owned religious titles and objects, such as the right to practice a certain dance or profession.'

The fish and animals strove to honor their sacrifice? Whose sacrifice? If 'The believed' is meant to be 'They believed', the referent is still unclear, and of course there's another 'they' later in the sentence to confuse matters. There should be no doubt about the referent of pronouns. 'or else the fish would return deformed'—I presume you mean that if the bones were returned to another river, this would be the case. It's unclear.

The prose is OK in parts, but too often looks like an unthinking first draft. Fix it all thoroughly and it won't be an embarrassment as a FA. Tony 13:20, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I fixed the article based on your suggestions, but is there anything else now? Toothpaste 22:03, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

• Well yes; the whole text needs a good edit. I've done another section, and inserted a few invisible queries. I'll work through it over the next few days. Tony 01:24, 6 September 2005 (UTC) PS It's very densely linked, which makes it harder to read, especially for children and non-native speakers. Many of the links are dictionary stuff, and should be delinked. The page should not be 'covered in blue' to the extent that it is. Make the valuable links stand out, and readers are more likely to hit them. Tony 01:26, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

• Support: Providing that the first paragraph is fixed up (it seems too much like a cold start into the topic. Even something like "The History of Alaska goes back to when it was settled by humans in blah..." Toothpaste assures me that this will be fixed.
  • This was me...erm, I'm an idiot. Ral315 23:17, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

• Support with reservations: The article currently waffles between saying "Eskimo" and "Inuit", terms which are part of a P.C. controversy. Canadians object to "Eskimo" because they feel it is a racist slur. Alaskans object to "Inuit" because they feel it refers to the Canadian Arctic peoples, not to Alaskans. The article should pick one, probably "Eskimo" since it's about Alaska, and stick to it everywhere. If Canadian or other non-Alaskan people object simply point out that it's about Alaska, where the term "Eskimo" is considered appropriate and non-denigratory. I will make some edits to the parts about the Coastal Indians. There are various minor inaccuracies that are easier to fix than to explain. Other than that I think the article is very well written and accurate for a short historical summary. — Jéioosh 19:01, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I changed all mentions of Inuit to Eskimo, as you have requested. Thanks for helping out with the article. Toothpaste 19:37, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll continue to work through it, adding queries here and there as invisible text. Nice pics have been added, but it's not ready yet for FA status. Give it another 10 days? Tony 09:07, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

• Object. While clearly superior to the prior state history FAC candidates, this still seems to depend on too narrow a range of sources and has conspicuous omissions -- most notably, Seward's motive(s) for buying Alaska and the reasons the purchase was controversial; for recent years, the original pipeline controversy needs development, and Hickel merits some mention. User:Tony's comments about prose quality remain well taken. The "Contemporary Alaska" section is a collection of information that doesn't fit into other sections; some of it isn't historical, and the rest indicates the historical framework needs further work. And one detail seems particularly incorrect: "the first military campaign on U.S. soil since the War of 1812." There were quite a few military campaigns on U.S. soil between 1861 and 1865, for example, and G.A. Custer wasn't part of a territorial police force . . . . Monicasdude 02:18, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I thought "the first military campaign on U.S. soil since the War of 1812" alluded to a foreign military campaign. I fixed this and will continue to work on your other reasons for objecting tomorrow. Will you please continue to check this article to see if it becomes supportable for you? Thanks. Toothpaste 03:07, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

• Support BUT I think the lead has too much information, some should be moved IMHO as they are details. --Cool Cat ^Talk 23:14, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Well written, comprehensive, and informative. Nufy8 04:51, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

• Object – The page size is on the higher side. Please read Wikipedia:Summary style. The History of Arizona article is much more readable. User:Nichalp/sg 11:28, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
• Support with Comments from an Alaskan Resident. Very fine article. The prehistory seems a little New Agey. The British Presence section is a little odd. It says Cook found the Bering Straits impassable, but that Cook "left the Northwest Passage." Wouldn't it be more correct to say he left the straits? RPellessier | (Talk) 06:55, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Fixed. I addressed many of Nichalp's comments, too. I don't think it's too long just yet. Toothpaste 06:56, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Its still a very long read. User:Nichalp/sg 09:55, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
    • I reduced it to 38KB. Now it's three-fourths the size, but hopefully not three-fourths the quality. Toothpaste 11:41, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
• Support – I've changed to support (post its promotion) Reasons:
  • Sufficient collaboration has gone into improving this article
  • The length has been shortened and sections have been summarised
  • All my concerns have been addressed by Toothpaste.

User:Nichalp/sg 09:21, September 12, 2005 (UTC)