Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Colorado River/archive1

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

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 10:03, 30 July 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Colorado River[edit]

Colorado River (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Shannon 05:38, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note to reviewers: Starting July 7 I will have spotty Internet access at best, so I may not be able to respond promptly to comments. If I don't respond within 3-4 days or so, please feel free to cancel this nomination. Shannon 16:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By global standards, the Colorado is a mere stream, probably not hitting the top one thousand in terms of volume. However, it's the lifeline of the Desert Southwest – source of water for 40 million people and some of the richest farmland in both the U.S. and Mexico. Dammed thirteen times and controlled by enough reservoirs to flood England two feet deep, the Colorado is one of our most litigated rivers, and among our most storied, too – from ancient civilizations rivaling the Aztec and Inca, to a one-armed man's 1869 descent of its perilous canyons, to a "mishap" that created California's largest lake, or the heroic efforts of those who raised Hoover Dam in the nadir of the Great Depression.

I've made my best effort to represent this on Wikipedia; article passed GA in March last year. The article has been stable for a very long time, though before that it went through a fair share of fights and subsequent revision, which I believe has contributed to a good balance in the neutrality of this hotly contested topic. Shannon 05:38, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:Coloradorivermapnew1.jpg: second source link needs updating
  • File:Coronado-Remington.jpg: source link is dead
  • File:John_D._Lee.jpg needs US PD tag and more info: who is the author, when/where was this first published?
    • I could only trace the source to the Utah State Historical Society here, there is no information regarding the photographer or publication date, there is the mention of one Charles Kelly who previously owned this photograph but that's it. Lee died in 1877, so this photograph was taken well before 1923.Shannon 17:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Mohave_No._2_at_Yuma_1876.jpg: when/where was this first published? The given source is not pre-1923. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:23, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I couldn't find the book. This site however gives the date as 1876, should I add it to the Commons page for the image?
For the latter two images I can either remove or replace them if further copyright complications arise. Shannon 17:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
and one notable section in the Grand Canyon reaches up to 110 feet (34 m) in depth. - why is it notable? If it is just because it is deep, let the facts speak for themselves and remove the word as it is a bit fluffy.
Removed "notable". Shannon 20:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Between 85–90 percent of the Colorado River's discharge originates in snowmelt - either "Between 85 and 90 percent of the Colorado River's discharge originates in snowmelt" or "85–90 percent of the Colorado River's discharge originates in snowmelt"
Changed to "85 and 90 percent". Shannon 20:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
link snowpack
Done Shannon 20:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
mainly in present-day Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, since at least 1 A.D - that looks really odd. I'd prefer " mainly in present-day Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, since 200 years ago" or "the past 2000 years".
Changed to "2,000 years". Shannon 20:21, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
On a widescreen computer, the text which precedes Powell's quote in the Early explorers section is indented by a photograph, hence the quote is flush with the preceding text and does not format as a quote. It is confusing to read.
Changed image position to right. That should fix the problem. Shannon 20:21, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The logical location for the Major tributaries segment would be as a subsection under the Course section.
Done. Originally, the location of that section was based on the Columbia River article, a FA, which has the tributaries section at the very bottom. Now that I moved it, I actually think it looks better, so I'll go with this. Shannon 20:41, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I am missing this but have you covered when it was first called the Colorado river? I think "why" is touched upon.
I believe this section is sufficient: "The name Tizon lasted for the next two hundred years, while the name Colorado ("Red River") was first applied to a tributary of the Gila River, possibly the Verde River, circa 1720. The first known map to label the main stem as the Colorado was drawn by French cartographer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin in 1743." It's under the Early explorers section under Human History. Shannon 23:37, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, must have missed that. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:40, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My only small comment is that colorado doesn't mean red river, it just means red (unless there is an older Spanish meaning that I'm not aware of). 108.205.160.241 (talk) 23:22, 30 June 2013 (UTC) (user:manfrombuttonwillow)[reply]
Ah, thanks for catching that. I've corrected it to say Rio Colorado Shannon 23:26, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Anything more about water quality or pollution?
Sort of covered in "Environmental impacts". I believe there's a good amount of information out there, I could try and elaborate a bit there. Shannon 23:37, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reading one of the sources, sounds like there's been massive change and degradation - expected really when you dam a river and radically change the downstream environment - so I think this could be expanded a bit. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:40, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've added some information regarding impacts of agricultural runoff and pesticides, as well as salinity control and remediation programs including the recent Minute 319 decision between US and Mexico. Shannon 23:11, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Looks better - I wonder whether the future bit is worth being the last section of the article (i.e. moving wildlife to below geology, and recreation sections to above the Engineering and development ) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:30, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You mean putting "Wildlife and plants" and "Geology" into a single "Natural history" section and "Recreation" to above engineering... hmmm... It does work too, but then the engineering section is left sort of hanging off at the end. Other river FAs such as Columbia River and Rogue River (Oregon) also have their information regarding flora/fauna and recreational use coming after sections about engineering/dams/water projects etc. Shannon 05:06, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, you have a point too. I was more just musing - it might work if recreation was subsection of engineering (rename human impact/development?) ..not hugely fussed and happy to "go with the flow" as it were....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:44, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm thinking of splitting off "Uncertain future" entirely from "Engineering and development" and putting it as the last section. If I can find more information/extend the section somewhat, I'll probably do it. Shannon 22:10, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ultimately I doubt there is one best way of arrangement here, I was just musing really. Overall I think I can support this on prose and comprehensiveness as I can't see any content-holes or prose clangers left, however I am not familiar enough with the topic to be totally confident and will keep an eye on other comments. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support now and Comments Leads should be summaries and as such should need few, if any, footnotes. You have 19 of them in the lead. There are also dozens of harv errors, meaning your footnotes aren't being linked properly. I'll have to get to that later.PumpkinSky talk 02:58, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I will take care of the refs currently present in the lead. Regarding the citation errors how shall I go about fixing that? I am not sure how to make it work. Shannon 06:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Put importScript('User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js'); in your skin, I use monobook so I have it in monobook.js. I'll go fix one so you see what I'm talking about. PumpkinSky talk 00:06, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have been able to clear up most of the referencing errors but I am running into problems with some, e.g. ref 4 (Hoover Dam 75th Anniversary Symposium) where there is no author listed, ref 219 (Ghiglieri and Myers) where there are multiple authors, and ref 138 (Leuchtenberg), which just stubbornly won't work. Can you enlighten me on how to sort these out? Shannon 05:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You canlist up to 4 last names as in sfn|Smith|Jones|Batton|Quiggly|year|p or pp= if app. It'll display Smith et al. For no author, Just use the name of company or whatever for no author. See Frederick Russell Burnham for samples. We're almost done converting that to sfn format. PumpkinSky talk 09:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
These have been fixed. Using the "editor#" parameters allows the template to generate an anchor for the 75th Anniversary Symposium, and Ghiglieri & Myers was fixed by using "last2" and "first2" instead of "coauthors" to list Myers. Choess (talk) 18:40, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Much nicer. Refs 15 and 78 don't link at all and 10 refs still in the lead. PumpkinSky talk 20:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually there are only 5 refs in the lead and the other 5 are in the geobox. I think that's a reasonable amount but if they would be better removed entirely let me know. Shannon 02:38, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed three refs that weren't linked at all. I moved two refs to the body. Support now. PumpkinSky talk 23:02, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose, comprehensiveness, and verifiability. In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I am a member of the Rivers project and that I recently made nitpicky improvements to the punctuation, citation data, and prose. I ran spotchecks on citations 30, 53, 126, 244, and 251 and found no copyvios or too-close paraphrasing. This is an excellent article about an important river. Finetooth (talk) 21:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Comprehensive, well-written, and nicely organized. I have one minor quibble: the article isn't very consistent when it comes to abbreviating units of measurement. Some are abbreviated (mainly in the course section), and others aren't. But otherwise, really exceptional work. (I am also a member of WikiProject Rivers.) LittleMountain5 06:48, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed the outliers this morning by removing "abbr=on" from the conversion templates in the "Course" section and a small number elsewhere. Exceptions are OK in tables and the geobox, where space is limited, but the main text and notes are now internally consistent. Finetooth (talk) 17:52, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, it looks much better. LittleMountain5 21:38, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Minor comment - There are a few "with" expressions that need attention:

  • "The LCRV is one of the most densely populated areas along the river, with numerous towns including Bullhead City, Arizona, Needles, California, and Lake Havasu City, Arizona". and there are numerous towns?
  • "They soon established themselves as the dominant Native American tribe in the Colorado River basin, with their territory stretching over parts of present-day Arizona," and their territory stretched?
  • "The Colorado's Cataract Canyon and many reaches in the Colorado headwaters are even more heavily used than the Grand Canyon, with about 60,000 boaters running a single 4.5-mile (7.2 km) section above Radium, Colorado, each year." and about 60,000 boaters run? Graham Colm (talk) 16:17, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Quite right. I took the liberty of fixing these exactly as you suggested. Finetooth (talk) 21:55, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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