Talk:Great Storm of 1975

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Great Storm of 1975 article.
Article policies
Good article Great Storm of 1975 has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.

[edit] Items I see preventing this article from getting to GA

  • References - The format is inconsistent. You need to maintain a similar format throughout your references. If you start listing authors first in the reference, you should continue in that fashion through the article.
  • Two infoboxes? - This is something new to me for a meteorological article. It is creating chaos with your image placement. I'd suggest, if no one else has issue with two infoboxes, that you place the infobox for the severe weather event first (since it was earlier in the life cyclone anyhow)...and move the blizzard box a bit farther down the article. That should help you place your other images in a less haphazard manner. If others do have issue with two boxes, which they may, then pick the box that represents the greatest source of damage and "mayhem" from this cyclone. Thegreatdr 18:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
For the references, I don't think I did anything different, I just fillled in the information that I had as it was laid out in the different templates. Some of the reference sources did not contain authors names though, so that's why some are not showing up at the beginning. Does that make sense? With the infoboxes... When I started this article I'd asked if both of these events should be in one article, or if I should split them out, and the reply I got was just one article. Because this is a rare occasion where there was a large blizzard and a large tornado outbreak from the same system, I think that both infoboxes are justified (unless there is another type of infobox that would support both events). I wasn't sure if the should both be algined to the top or not, but that's how I initially put it in. Since you're okay with moving one down the page a bit I made that adjustment and I do think it looks much better. Thanks for the suggestion. Gopher backer 19:31, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I've fixed the references. Per your suggestion I moved the publisher to the front on all of them. Gopher backer 15:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
As for a lack of author, something I do to maintain similar structure is to credit the organization as the author for that reference. I'm going to ask about multiple infoboxes on the main project page, just to get more opinions. Blizzards and tornado outbreaks with the same cyclone aren't that uncommon...and it is bound to come up again. Thegreatdr 19:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Looks like there are only two errors left in the reference section. References 2 and 11 don't match the format of the others. Thegreatdr 15:45, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know that I can improve those any further. #2 is a {cite video}, #11 is a {cite book}, and the rest are {cite web}. Each of those templates uses different information, so they're going to display differently. Wikipedia:Citation_templates In each of the references, the author or publisher is listed first, followed by the referenced material. What specfiically do you think needs to be fixed yet? Gopher backer 16:15, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
That's the problem. A similar template needs to be used for all references. If you include dates of retrieval in one, you need them in all. If you hide the actual web address in one citation, it should be hidden in all of them. Someone else is bound to mention the mixed references as an obstacle, not just superficially, but codingwise. It's been coming up in FA for surface weather analysis, as well as GA for tropical cyclone rainfall climatology and tropical cyclone rainfall forecasting, and my reference related problem in FA was accidentally linking some retrieval dates and not others. FA is more strict, but it has come up in GA before. Thegreatdr 16:32, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, I've never heard of that being a problem before. Minnesota is going to be on the front page starting tonight, I chipped in a little with that one and that has a lot of mixed refs in it. I'll take a look at the articles you mentioned and see what they have to say. Gopher backer 16:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
If there are issues with how the various cite templates display items that should be taken up on the template talk page, not here. The correct templates are used for the correct type of media. -Ravedave 03:37, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

We have another issue. The tornado numbers for all the F categories neither match the total from that box, nor the infobox. That definitely needs to be fixed. Thegreatdr 21:37, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I corrected the tornado box. There was 1 error in the box (I think an F2 was missing), and I recounted the tornadoes and it looks like one F1 was missed so I added that back in as well. Gopher backer 03:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
There are a couple places in the article where more encyclopedaic wording is needed. One is in the lead. As an example, the term "pounded" should be replaced with a more relevent, less dramatic, term that you'd imagine reading in an academic text or an encyclopedia. The other problem in the lead is that it mentions this storm was a near record blizzard for the Midwest, but it is not mentioned within the body of the article. Make these two changes, and I'll pass the article. I'm placing the article on hold (which I should have done during the first set of comments) until the two changes are made. The changes need to be made by the 27th, or I'll fail it. The remaining small problems with the references can wait until FA. Thegreatdr 02:17, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Congratulations! I made one other edit to help the wording along. Thegreatdr 20:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your input along the way! Gopher backer 20:44, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Infobox

See what you think of the combined infobox for tornadoes and winter storms. It's my first attempt...it likely needs improvement. Thegreatdr 21:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks good. The only suggestion I'd have would maybe be to try and put a
or something to that effect in the middle of the box to seperate the tornado information from the blizzard part. Also, about the tornado count box, someone else put that information in so I'll go back and try to fix it. Gopher backer 19:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Right now I have the various pieces of information concerning tornadoes and snowfall intermingled. If you'd like to redesign the infobox, go for it. I'm new to their creation as well. Be bold! Thegreatdr 22:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I may have overdone it a bit, but feel free to pull one or two or three of the [hr]'s out. User:Gopher backer/sandbox2 Gopher backer 03:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Sweeps Review: Pass

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Meteorology and atmospheric sciences" articles. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have made several minor corrections throughout the article. Altogether the article is well-written and is still in great shape after its passing in 2007. Continue to improve the article making sure all new information is properly sourced and neutral. It would be beneficial to go through the article and update all of the access dates of the inline citations and fix any dead links. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)