Wikipedia:Peer review/New York City/archive3

New York City

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… Since the last reviews, many things are changed and previous problems are addressed. Also the problems in the last failed FA nom are "almost" addressed. I'll be considering a FA nom in 3-4 weeks so I want a review to know that what corrections are to be made in order to make this article of FA level. Happy editing and Thanks, →TSU ^tp* 03:36, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Quick comment from Aircorn

I looked at this article when it was up for GA a while back and one of the major problems I saw then was neutrality. Claims in the infobox of New York's nickname being "The Capital of the World" and "Center of the Universe" are a bit over the top. The lead itself is too full of positive and unattributed claims. It reads more like a tourist brochure than an introduction:

• "A global power city, New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment"
• " As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world"
• "Many districts and landmarks in New York City have become well known to its approximately 50 million annual visitors. Times Square, iconified as "The Crossroads of the World", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway theater district, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry"
• "The city hosts many world renowned bridges, skyscrapers, and parks"
• "New York City's financial district, anchored by Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, functions as the financial capital of the world"
• "Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive rapid transit systems in the world"
• "Numerous colleges and universities are located in New York, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, which are ranked among the top 50 in the world."

All statements should be supported in the body of the article anyway, which is not the case for many of these. It is doable to fix these up, but from my brief experience there you will encounter a lot of resistance. I would recommend expanding out the overcites from the lead into the body and writing the statements more ambiguously in the lead, something like this. Good luck. AIRcorn (talk) 05:40, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Comments by Peripitus

I'm not really thrilled by the state of the article and don't think it will do well at FA. I echo Aircorn's comments about the lead and have some more.

• The lead is a hagiography full of statements that can be distilled into "NY is really big" and "NY is really wonderful". I get to the end of the lead and know little about the city. Actually through the article it's full of "New York is the xxxxxest", "New York has the most xxxxx" which after a while becomes tiresome to read.
• The lead should certainly not be full of citations—these are for the body—and I note that many of them seem not to be used later in the article. 5 citations for one fact is terribly ugly and smacks of desperation to prove something.
• Don't link common terms that reader's would be expected to understand (see WP:OVERLINKING) like "democracy", "real estate", "commuting", "traffic conjestion" , "London", "Toyko"
• Though there are many citations there are unreferenced sentences that I am not sure are supported by any of the used citations - eg: about 1/4 of the "Early History" paragraphs and some of the trailing sentences in paragraphs.
• What does "has also been published as showcased by the National Library of Australia" mean - did they simply publish the book ? There a quite a lot of textual errors and unnecessary words, I've cherry picked some below. Much polishing is needed.
• "vast mass transit network" - tell them about the system and let reader's decide if it's vast
• "in more than 1,200 separate primary and secondary schools" - all 1200 schools are either primary or secondary and none are both ?
• "ranked 197th in crime among the 216 U.S. cities" - I recognize here the US obsession with numbering and measuring everything but it tells me nothing of importance. Just tell me that it has relatively low crime and I can read elsewhere if the statistical nuances matter.
• "22% of Manhattanites" - how about the simpler "residents"
• "The New York metropolitan area had approximately gross metropolitan product of $1.28 trillion" - grammer issue
• ". Additionally, there have been" - drop the Additionally
• "40 million combined domestic and international tourists visiting each year in the past five years" - until when ?
• References [1], [2] and not reliable sources and I'm not thrilled with "U-S-History.com" when the same facts could be referenced (and perhaps corrected) using more scholarly works (refs [34], [36]). Ref [51] is to Encylopedia Britannica - a secondary source rather than tertiary is better. [342] and [343] do not look like sensible references also.

- Peripitus (Talk) 13:08, 26 June 2012 (UTC)