Talk:New South Greenland

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Featured articleNew South Greenland is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 6, 2010.
Did You KnowOn this day... Article milestones
DateProcessResult
December 26, 2008Peer reviewReviewed
January 10, 2009Featured article candidatePromoted
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on December 28, 2008.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that New South Greenland was a phantom island near Antarctica, described in 1832 by Benjamin Morrell, who was called "the biggest liar in the Southern Ocean"?
On this day... A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on March 15, 2024.
Current status: Featured article

Orphan[edit]

This article is good, but an orphan - it needs incoming links from other wp articles. Punkmorten (talk) 10:35, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Eh? See WP:O#Criteria Brianboulton (talk) 00:40, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I didn't mean to confuse you, but you should read that again. The difference between incoming and outcoming links. 0 outgoing links = the article is a "dead-end", but this article has 40. 0 incoming links = "orphan", and this article has exactly 0. Punkmorten (talk) 09:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is a pretty new topic for the encyclopedia, and it's not surprising that at the moment few other articles mention New South Greenland. Nonetheless I have found and linked a couple of mentions, and have also extended a few other articles to create links. By my reckoning there are now five or six "incoming links". I will look for future opportunities to create more. Brianboulton (talk) 22:54, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Review comments[edit]

I'll add review comments here as I make my way through the article.

  • The first section (after the lead) jumps right in with "Wasp sailed south". This works if the reader has read the lead, but I think it would be better to have the body of the article step back for a sentence or two and say something like "In the early 19th century, the geography of Antarctica was almost completely unknown, though sightings of land had been made for over a hundred years by fishing and sealing ships" and set the scene a little. (I just made that up; I don't know if it's accurate.) For example, it appears that Morrell was deliberately exploring, rather than just sealing -- e.g. he searches for the Aurora Islands; is that the case? Was this a combined exploration/sealing expedition? Was that usual, or was Morrell unusual in this? Was Wasp already his ship? Had he explored in it before? I don't think you need more than two or three sentences, but it's a little too abrupt a start right now.
    • I've followed your advice and created a short introductory paragraph as a general scene setter. I hope this clarifies the general nature of the voyage. It also indicates that he had travelled southward previously, before being appointed to command the Wasp.
  • "Morrell wrongly recorded his position there, placing his anchorage to the south and west of the island's coastline": I'm not sure from this what his error was. Did he actually anchor to the south and west? Or does this mean that he thought the position he was recording was actually on the coastline, but the position he gave was off to the south and west, well away from the coast? The size of the error would be interesting too, given that the reader immediately wonders how it compares with the difference between his sighting of New South Greenland and the similarly-shaped coast of Graham Land. (And that in turn implies that a scale would be good to have on that picture.)
  • "a misleading description": is "misleading" what you want here? Isn't the description flat-out inaccurate, not really misleading?
  • "otherwise, he claims, in these open waters he could have taken the ship to 85°": I'd suggest "claimed" to stay in a consistent past tense.
  • "Morrell describes seal hunting activities along this putative coast, which activity continued during the remainder of the day": what's the difference between what Morrell describes and the activity that continues for the remainder of the day? In other words, could this be compressed to something like "Morrell describes seal hunting activities continuing along this putative coast for the remainder of the day"?
  • The first paragraph of "Searches for Morrell's land" seems to me to need an additional sentence after the first. You have a sentence commenting that geographers often dismissed the sighting, followed by a description of the limited early voyages into the Weddell Sea. I think a sentence linking these is needed; perhaps something like "This scepticism about Morrell's observations could not be confirmed for decades, as the Weddell Sea was only penetrated once more in the next eighty years. The sole expedition in that time was Sir James Clark Ross's voyage of 1843 ..." or something like that--I haven't phrased it just right there, but I think some segue like that would be useful.
  • You only mention the title of Morrell's book in the lead. I think it would be good to mention early on that he made four voyages overall and that this was the first, perhaps in the additional context sentences I suggested at the start of the body. Then I would mention the title of the book at the end, where you talk about him writing it.
  • Is the position on the map marked "? mountains" the point from which Morrell turned north (67°52'S, 48°11W)? If so, I'd suggest either putting the coordinates on the map, as you did with the North Cape position, or else making it clearer in the label that this corresponds to the furthest southern point to which Morrell sailed.

I spent some time thinking about whether another map, showing Bouvet Island and perhaps even the Kerguelens on the same map as the Weddell Sea, would be useful, but finally decided that this is about New South Greenland, not about Morrell, so I think the one you have is fine. Overall a concise, interesting and well-written article. Thanks for the chance to review it. Mike Christie (talk) 12:38, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • I added the distance scale in kilometres to the map I made. Let me know if you want labels changed (the southernmost point originally had latitude and longitude, but that was estimated from another map and removed later). Ruhrfisch ><>°° 13:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      I see the scale is on the top left of the map as well as the bottom right; at top left it conflicts with the South American peninsula. Could it be removed from the top left? Incidentally, how do you create these? I see you use Online Map Creation; how do you recolour the map? I occasionally need maps for my own articles, and I'd love to know how you do these. Mike Christie (talk) 13:52, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      I fixed the map, thanks for pointing that out. I use MS Paint or Paint.net. To color I use the semi official map colors and fill or erase as needed. I have some details on how I do maps at User:Ruhrfisch/Resources#Making_Maps Ruhrfisch ><>°° 18:07, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for the above review comments. I am transferring them to the peer review page, and will respond to them there. Brianboulton (talk) 16:48, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]


FA Approval[edit]

Even though this is a bit late, the article has broken a few style guide rules, the first 3 paraphrase (until I fixed them) where redirects, red links, and links to completely unrelated articles to the linked word. Please, if any of you are going to submit a FA, ensure that you don’t embarrass yourself with these oversights.--Amckern (talk) 07:10, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Two of those three are correct, but per WP:REDLINK, relevant red links to articles which might be created aren't a problem with regards to the MoS, even on Featured Articles. GeeJo (t)(c) • 08:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Links are typically checked in FAC. While I do not know if it is the case here, it is my experience that over time some wikilinks become disambiguations or redirects. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 16:40, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the feedback --Amckern (talk) 22:57, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Issue?[edit]

I see that this is on the main page and obviously I don't want to edit it (if I still can I haven't been on here in a while). But in the opening section of the article it mentions someone being unable to "confirm its non-existence." Wouldn't he have been trying to confirm its existence? And the fact that he was unable to led to the idea of its non-existence? Tractorkingsfan 16:05, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NEVERMIND I read it wrong. Tractorkingsfan 16:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]