Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Johnson Creek (Willamette River)
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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 01:50, 7 May 2008.
Johnson Creek (Willamette River)[edit]
Self-nomination: I'm nominating this article for FA because I think it meets all the criteria. It is a Good Article that has been peer-reviewed and improved since then based on the reviewer's suggestions and those of other editors. Finetooth (talk) 02:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Support. A magnificently researched article about an overlooked creek in an urban area. Articles like this do a great service to Wikipedia, encouraging us all to become more familiar with our local environment. A few suggestions for improvement:
- Can we find a more straightforward line through the first two paragraphs in the "course" section? I feel like we're going in circles, talking about the headwaters and then the mouth, and then the headwaters again and then the mouth again. I see the rationale for the current organization but I find it a barrier to reading.
- There is conflicting information about the number of times the stream crosses the county line (8 or 5?).
- Perhaps the information on the elevation of the headwaters and mouth is better left to the topography section. It seems repetitive to have it in two sections.
- In general, the article could benefit from a slightly cleaner line through the prose. In long articles, there is always a balance between summary structure (where it may be necessary to repeat the same information in multiple sections) and narrative flow (as the reader progresses through the article from start to finish). Currently, I think the narrative flow suffers a bit.
- Overall, however, this is fabulous work and deserves my strongest support. None of these issues should prevent FA status.Northwesterner1 (talk) 09:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you for the kind words and support. I have removed the stream elevation information from the Course section. It was indeed confusing because in one place I had used the elevation of the water, and in another place I had used the elevation of the high point of the surrounding highlands. I stuck with the highlands number because the edge of the watershed seems to me to be more knowable than the exact starting point of this particular stream. You are also right about the semi-illogical structure of the Course section. I will attempt a re-write later today and post a notice here when it is done. The re-write should also clear up the confusion about the eight county border crossings, five on the upper reaches and three near the mouth. When these things are done, I will consider how to improve the narrative flow. Finetooth (talk) 18:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I've reorganized the Course section to flow like the creek from top to bottom in a straight line with no circling. The material that was stuck onto the bottom of the earlier version has been blended with the main text, seamlessly I hope. I think the border crossings are now clear as well. I think you again for pointing these things out. I'm still working on the narrative flow. The question led me to seeing that the flood information was scattered here and there and would make more sense put together in the flood section. Finetooth (talk) 05:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- In the night, I realized that History had to come before Floods for the floods to be understood. Otherwise, a reader would be forced to read to the bottom of the article to understand the middle. I moved History up and then took the advice of User:EncMstr to tighten the lead. These two changes coupled with the moving of the separate flood paragraphs into the same section has improved the narrative flow considerably, I believe. I'm open to further suggestions, and I thank you for these. Finetooth (talk) 19:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I think the flow is much improved. Good work. Northwesterner1 (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Checked and capped for Ealdgyth because she's traveling. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments (forgive my typing, I'm on the road with an unfamiliar laptop keyboard)
- What makes the following reliable sources?
- I'm on the road again, and the link checker tool doesn't like this hotel's ISP, I am getting a LOT of timeout errors, which I suspect are related to the hotel ISP. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Steve Johnson (author of the second site) has a PhD in urban studies and is an adjunct professor in the School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. resume. Quoting from WP:RS, "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I would assume that to be the case for Mr. Johnson. The cited material does not seem to be particularly controversial, so in my view the self-published source from an academic is appropriate in this case. Northwesterner1 (talk) 01:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- works for me.
- Good catch on the lat-long. I replaced it with the USGS elevation number for Cottrell, which puts it 13 feet higher than before. Cottrell has moved up in the world. Finetooth (talk) 03:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- And a further improvement. I was equating the elevation for Cottrell with the elevation for the stream source, but the source as defined by the USGS is merely near Cottrell. User:Ruhrfisch noticed this and suggested other methods. I have revised the elevation again to 745 feet citing the USGS and Google Earth, which I finally downloaded this evening. It is awesome. Thank you both. Finetooth (talk) 04:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Good catch on the lat-long. I replaced it with the USGS elevation number for Cottrell, which puts it 13 feet higher than before. Cottrell has moved up in the world. Finetooth (talk) 03:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- works for me.
- Steve Johnson (author of the second site) has a PhD in urban studies and is an adjunct professor in the School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. resume. Quoting from WP:RS, "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I would assume that to be the case for Mr. Johnson. The cited material does not seem to be particularly controversial, so in my view the self-published source from an academic is appropriate in this case. Northwesterner1 (talk) 01:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Support I made a few minor edits, but otherwise it looks great. Wonderful work! VanTucky 02:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Support In the interest of full disclosure, I was the good article reviewer and contributed to the peer review. This article has improved since and fully meets the FA criteria. Excellent job, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- support it's great; if you want, add some external links and a bibliography section. the wikilinks may be under the references.--Mojska 666 – Leave your message here 16:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you for your support and for the reminder about external links. We have added a short external links section. Finetooth (talk) 04:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- ^_^ --Mojska 666 – Leave your message here 11:36, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Support. I'm probably considered a "substantial contributor" (though nobody's put as much sweat into this as Finetooth, by far!) This article is highly detailed, well-referenced, well-organized. I would say we should put some more thought into how to best display the excellent course photo-map Northwesterner uploaded before the article gets to FA. I think it's best not to have the image load at full resolution by default, but because of its extreme width, any reasonable file size makes it appear tiny. I'll try to look later at what the manual of style says about wide images. I'd also like to give the most recent edition a closer read later, but am highly doubtful I'll find anything that would prevent an FA. Great work, Finetooth! -Pete (talk) 15:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for your support, Pete. WP:MOS gives images size guidelines [here] but does not address the file size question. The current version is 300px high by 4,512px wide, and the file size is a hair over 1 megabyte, considerably reduced from yesterday's 3.44 MB. Northwesterner has posted a test page with five different file sizes here. I don't know if such a thing as a load-time tool exists on Wikipedia or if any load-time limits have been set or recommended. The map knocks my socks off, so I hope we can keep it in something like its present form. Any advice on these questions would be appreciated. Finetooth (talk) 18:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- On my computer, the page loads first with the panorama template as a placeholder, and then the image loads. So the article is still readable while the image finishes loading. Definitely not ideal, but it doesn't cause too much havoc. Does the page load in the same way for other folks? (I have a separate concern about the wide image template: printing for offline use. Is the template coded to be ignored when articles are printed?) Northwesterner1 (talk) 19:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Load time tool, analyzes HTML and images. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- On my computer, the page loads first with the panorama template as a placeholder, and then the image loads. So the article is still readable while the image finishes loading. Definitely not ideal, but it doesn't cause too much havoc. Does the page load in the same way for other folks? (I have a separate concern about the wide image template: printing for offline use. Is the template coded to be ignored when articles are printed?) Northwesterner1 (talk) 19:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for your support, Pete. WP:MOS gives images size guidelines [here] but does not address the file size question. The current version is 300px high by 4,512px wide, and the file size is a hair over 1 megabyte, considerably reduced from yesterday's 3.44 MB. Northwesterner has posted a test page with five different file sizes here. I don't know if such a thing as a load-time tool exists on Wikipedia or if any load-time limits have been set or recommended. The map knocks my socks off, so I hope we can keep it in something like its present form. Any advice on these questions would be appreciated. Finetooth (talk) 18:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please ask Elcobbola (talk · contribs) or Black Kite (talk · contribs) to clear the images; I don't speak images. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not aware of policy/guidelines explicitly addressing image size as it relates to load time. WP:IUP sets forth a "rule of thumb" to upload high resolution images and then use the thumbnail parameter (perhaps implicit that the thumbnail is needed to mitigate load time) and WP:SIZE addresses being mindful of load time, but only in the context of prose (one assumes if expediting prose load time is important, image load time is also important). I have some (rudimentary) suggestions in my talk page response, but I haven't strong feelings one way or another. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 21:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not asking about size or loadtime; I'm asking if the images are clear on Fair Use and NFCC et al. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Images (i.e. tagging and copyright) look fine. Image:Chinook.png has an odd way of going about it (hosting permission email image on de.wiki), but it's proof enough for me. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 00:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
