Wikipedia:Featured article review/Yellowstone National Park/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 07:49, 2 May 2007.

[edit] Yellowstone National Park

[edit] Review commentary

Talk messages left at Protected areas, Maveric149, Volcanoes, & Montana. Ceoil 10:43, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I have spent the over a month updating this current featured article. I have added a lot of information, clarifying misrepresentations and making sure all the references are accurate and as up to date as possible. This is the amount of change that has been incorporated. As this article was last reviewed as a featured article in 2004, I wanted to make sure it continues to meet the standards. Since this is an article about the worlds first National Park, I am determined to ensure it stays listed as a featured article, so any advice would be helpful. My biggest concern is that the article may not be "brilliantly written" as I know I have a tendency to be good at gathering evidence, but not so good at creating great prose. I definitely don't want to remove anything referenced from the article, even though it exceeds the recommended length...there is a lot to talk about, and a lot of the information is already expanded in subarticles that are linked.--MONGO 21:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Tempted to cite WP:SNOW. Tight prose, and the article is well attributed, and is generally authoritative. The images are largly free, and taken from commons; while one is a former featured picture. No issues here. Ceoil 00:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the edits...that is pretty much what I wanted...some copyediting.--MONGO 05:24, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Please, let's leave SNOW off of this page. Part of the initial intent of FAR was as a place for relatively light copy-editing. Marskell 07:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Apology, it was meant as a complement to the editors of the article. Irony and computers don't go well together, I suppose. An origional author putting forward his own article for comment is refreshing. Ceoil 08:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Thumbnail images are not supposed to have hard coded pixel widths, it conflicts with user preferences. Jay32183 15:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Adjusted, thanks.--MONGO 06:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Mongo, can you please notify any WikiProjects mentioned on the talk page and involved editors/original author (probably Mav) with {{subst:FARMessage|Yellowstone National Park}} ? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Definitely, thanks.--MONGO 04:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I've been monitoring Mongo's progress on the article for over a month. Everything I've seen him do so far was an improvement and was similar to what I had long planned to do with this article (my second ever FA). That said, I will take a closer look in a day or two to make sure everything works together. --mav 03:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Looks like a potential keep without FARC; I will print and read entire article in the next few days. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I did some minor copyediting, added a very few cite tags, and found some issues that should be addressed. I think the article will definitely retain its star, but there's some work to be done still.

• I saw copyediting needs, fixed some myself, but perhaps you can ask Deckiller (talk · contribs) to run through the article before we close the review. In particular, there was a strange usage of semi-colons; I caught some of them, but I doubt I got them all. I'm also not sure on the capitalization of the seasons in Forest fires and Climate sections. I also added hyphens to mid-date occurrences. There were several sentences that started with numbers, and I also found several occurrences of hyphens rather than ndashes separating date ranges (seee WP:DASH). I did some redundancy reducing, but I suspect there's more. I also removed some instances of "currently" and made them more durable. There is some inconsistent capitalization of animals that should be checked, like lynx and Lynx. Generally, it would be helpful if an experienced copyeditor ran through the entire text again. I'm not sure if "first national park ranger" in the Park creation section should be capitalized. I saw some awkward text, but didn't feel up to the task of repairing it.
• Many of the Government websources are dated; I added some of those dates to the references, but they should all be checked.
• Reference number 11 is messed up; it actually includes several pages, so that text isn't verified to the page listed. They need to be split out.
• There seems to be a problem with the park visitation numbers (5,000 by 1883). First, it should say "annual" or "yearly". Second, the Annual Park Statistics number says something different than the sentence cited to ref 11 (which I couldn't verify on ref 11). Also, if 5,000 were coming in by 1883, but 1,000 automobiles entered the park in 1915, the numbers don't seem to jive—1,000 automobiles doesn't translate to a lot of visitors, 30 years later? Can this be resolved?
• There are at least two pieces of text which don't seem to remain tightly focused on the subject; I suggest they should be removed, and there may be others.
  • (This doesn't relate to Yellowstone, rather areas to the north, not sure it's needed.) It is believed that the moister conditions found north and west of Yellowstone and the lack of historical levels of wildfire due to increased suppression, are the primary reasons for the decimation of the whitebark pine communities in those areas.
  • and was classified as an F4 tornado by Ted Fujita— who developed the fujita scale for classifying tornado intensity. (The info about who he is should be contained in his Wiki article and isn't needed here; I suggest ending the sentence after F4 tornado.)
• I added cite tags on the entire paragraph about how the park got it's name (couldn't find that anywhere in the text) and the bison estimates (they just don't resonate with what I read/saw when I visited Yellowstone, Montana and Glacier), and the comment about learning from the army (acccording to whom?).
• I'm not sure what this sentence is saying, it seems redundant, and the punctuation is off:
  • Other rare mammals such as the mountain lion have been reported to have a population estimated at 25, while the wolverine is known to live in the park, actual population figures are unknown.
• Now, to the biggest problem; the lead should be rewritten. The WP:LEAD is supposed to be a stand-alone summary of the article; it's not. Not only does it not summarize the article, but it has two entire paragraphs which are too much detail for the lead and contain text which isn't mentioned anywhere else in the article. The last two paragraphs of the lead should be moved into the body of the article, and a summarizing lead should be written. This should probably be done last, after a copyedit. Also, both of those paragraphs should be cited.

I think all of this work is very doable during FAR, but don't be alarmed if Marskell moves the article to FARC just to keep it on track timewise—that doesn't mean the article will be delisted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• • Thank you for the time you have spent looking things over and making some adjustments as well. I have added numerous new refs in the history section, breaking up the same link for #11 into direct webpage links. I made amendments to the 1883 visitation issue and tried to address the 1,000 cars thing...I imagine, but can't find out exactly when they banned horses on the roads due to increased vehicle traffic...but the ref says it happened later than 1915 by the way it is worded. I removed the whitebark pine expansion and the part with too much detail about Fujita. I found a ref for where the name for the park came from, and moved that paragraph to the history section. I cited the management policies that were adopted by the NPS from the army. I'll work on fixing the mountain lion sentence and developing a better intro in the next day or two.--MONGO 13:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment — I agree with Sandy's pointers. As for the prose, I'll try to make some time tomorrow afternoon. Tony's back, so he might be able to help as well. — Deckiller 03:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

  I believe I have made most of the adjustments mentioned by Sandy...I just added a summary intro which I think is a big improvement. I don't tend to ref the intros too much since they are usually better detailed and refed in the article body. A good copyedit would be helpful and let me know if there is anything else that needs to be referenced, adjusted or expanded. I appreciate the help with this effort.--MONGO 06:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Once the prose experts are satisfied, I'm good with a keep without moving to FARC, but does anyone think the lead is too long now? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

• It is longish. I admit to be an average writer overall, much better at finding references than creating brilliant prose, so what the article needs more than anything at this point is a good copyedit.--MONGO 20:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Status: are we done here or are there concerns left? Marskell 08:45, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy, but I'm not the prose person :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

• I've just had a pass at the lead.
  • "Virtually all the original wildlife species that are native to the park can still be found in Yellowstone." As you've already introduced Native Americans and 11,000 years of history, this can be misinterpreted. Native to the park at the time of European contact?
  • Not that I'm perfect on this subject, but watch which/that use. "Visitors access the park by way of guided tours which use tracked vehicles known as snow coaches." "Which" implies that, generically, "guided tours" always use tracked vehicles. When you do use "which," follow it with a comma. Marskell 08:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I just went and made a couple edits to the lead, then saw you had already made some adjustments. I tried to reword the issue about U.S. Army invlovement, more in keeping with the facts and changed the sentence about winter access by snowcoaches and snowmobiles.--MONGO 08:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The article seems within criteria and I don't see a need to move it to FARC; we can leave it up until the prose has been gone through completely. I think the prose is fine in general. My main comment is re over-loading sentences: I don't like three "and"s in a sentence where each is followed by a long clause. Brackets, semi-colons, or simply making one sentence two is often good for the reader... IMO, anyhow :). Marskell 18:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• As a minor point the statement "at least 2 million tourists have visited the park almost every year" is qualified twice. Ceoil 19:15, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll go through the article and see what else I can tweak to make it read better. I really appreciate all the helpful edits the article has gotten recently. It definitely has better prose now than a few weeks ago, and the streamlining makes it much more readable as well.--MONGO 21:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• Re-read this again tonight, made minor edits; have no real issues with the prose; other than that one sentence highlighted above. Ceoil 22:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• I want to raise 1a as an issue, and for this reason, I think it should move to FARC to allow the contributors to collaborate with others to fix it. When I read this at the top, I worry:
  • "the largest intact ecosystem in the northern temperate zone on Earth.[3] It became the world's first national park on 1 March 1872.[1] Located mostly in the U.S. state of Wyoming, parts of the park also extend into Montana and Idaho."
  • "on earth" is odd as worded, especially followed almost immediately by "the world's". Remove the old "located", I keep saying everywhere. "Parts" of the "park" is a jangle. "also extend"—one word is redundant. Heck, what a bombsite. Remove "to date". Comma after "fantasy)" to complete the nested phrase. "Commence" sounds like ballet school—go plain, with "start". And there's more, everywhere:
  • "a lack of funding and limited manpower to protect the park wildlife and resources became serious"—as opposed to "jocular"? Needs to be explicit. So we're to gather that the army's take-over solved that funding problem? Readers have to make leaps of imagination where it should be on a platter for them, nice and clear and crisp. The protection and maintenance of structures—this is tacked onto the end of the paragraph without a logical entree.
  • "Numerous", like "some" and "various", is usually better removed. Does it add anything here?
  • "the largest high altitude lake in North America"—guess where the hyphen goes (even US editors, who use fewer hyphens than other anglophones, would insist).
  • "The hot waters and geysers found in the park are caused by a volcano which has ..."—You could probably remove "found in the park", or at the least "found", since it's readily recoverable from the context, and you've told us of their existence already.

I won't go on; that was just two and a bit paragraphs. Please network to find copy-editors (edit history pages of related FAs and FACs are a good place to start: approach individually). Tony 22:19, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I read through the essay you have about meeting criteria 1a and definitely agree that waiting several days to perform a copyedit is a good idea. I'll try and get some members of the wikiproject to look over the article and make further edits to streamline and improve the prose. I did remove numerous (ad nauseum) "in the park" and similar, and made the adjustments you mentioned above. I ended up adding a few more refs as well. A snapshot of my edits since your comments can be seen here.--MONGO 04:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Mongo, you might try asking Deckiller (talk · contribs) or Outriggr (talk · contribs) to help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks...I'll drop a few folks a request to copyedit and probably step back from this for now. My only interest in seeing this article continue to be featured is due to the subject and I have no personal vested interest otherwise. I want it to be as good as it can possibly be and hopefully can convince a few others to take care of issues I am either not able to see due to my closeness to the subject or due to a lack of ability overall.--MONGO 05:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Another possibility is KP Botany (talk · contribs) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment In the first paragraph of the "Park creation and later history" section, the article mentions "large-format photographs by William Henry Jackson." Some can be found here: [1] Works by Thomas Moran can be found here: [2], [3] While I know the article has plenty of images, might it be worth including something from this expedition to go with the text? The first two paintings on the NPS site [4] depict not only the landscape but also the expedition party and are high resolution images. --Aude (talk) 15:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

That was a good idea...I added a painting made by William Henry Jackson to the article...thanks also for your copyedits.--MONGO 16:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

• Could somebody give a followup pass to the lead section? I experimented with a few sentences, but something doesn't feel right. — Deckiller 05:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• "Located mostly in the U.S. state of Wyoming, the park extends into Montana and Idaho." Tony, do you have an issue with "located" being used here? "Mostly in the..." would sound a bit odd. — Deckiller 05:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Move to FARC—although this will most likely be kept, it needs more time on the page to weed out additional 1a issues. I took a crack at the lead and made a few random fixes throughout; many other editors have put some great effort into this comprehensive article. — Deckiller 00:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Note Let's wait until ce has been performed. If no outstanding issues are left the review may be closed without FARC. Joelito (talk) 12:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Question This article has undergone massive effort to get it to this level of quality. As such, I'm curious if an article like this can be on the main page again. Last time it was on the main page was over three years ago. Though being on the main page is a vandal magnet and not sure its desirable. --Aude (talk) 15:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

We could ask to have it again on the mainpage if this gets recertified.--MONGO 16:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Raul/Mark has been asked that question many times, and has never agreed to run an article on the main page a second time. Considering we have about 100 articles that have never been on the mainpage and are waiting their turn, there's no reason he should. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• Suggest: If people work on ce'ing this further, start from the bottom as we've already done so much of the top. Marskell 12:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree. The lead and the first two sections seem fine now, so most of the issues are in the bottom few sections. — Deckiller 18:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

General copyedit. Marskell 14:17, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Work's slowed down so we'll finish up down here. This is still a very solid article. Marskell 14:17, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• If anything, I'm likely to work on subarticles to this one rather than make many more edits. I will give it one last once over in the next couple of days.--MONGO 06:02, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
• Conditional Keep—once the copy-edit is finished. I still have this on my plate somewhere. — Deckiller 00:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

  I just went through and did some more CE and added all the missing dates for the references. I found four-five refs that led to incorrect pages and adjusted those to their correct URL's.--MONGO 09:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Good enough for me, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.