Wikipedia:Peer review/Islais Creek/archive1

Islais Creek[edit]

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A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for March 2009.

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I've listed this article for peer review because I feel the prose is written poorly. I want to get more feedback on grammar. Hopefully, I can get this to FA in the future (the ultimate goal!).

Thanks, —Chris! _ct 00:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is an interesting urban creek, badly beat up but still alive. I have a few general questions and suggestions.

I wonder if there is some way to explain the course in a way that would make sense to readers not intimately familiar with San Francisco. A map could do it, but it might also help to explain where the creek is in relation to a famous landmark, perhaps the Golden Gate Bridge. It would also help to describe the course from the source to the mouth. That's the standard procedure for creeks and rivers. Thus, instead of starting the course description with "The original Islais Creek stretched from the San Francisco Bay 3.5 miles (5.6 km) west into the Glen Canyon Park[7] and O’Shaughnessy Hollow," I think it should be the other way around, flowing east (apparently) from Glen Canyon Park and O'Shaughnessy Hollow to the Bay. You might then be able to give a course description that identifies changes of direction, major streets, landmarks, or points of interest by the left bank, right bank convention from source to mouth. This should be possible even if much of the former creek is in a pipe or culvert. It also sounds as if the stream begins in one park and ends in another park, which is interesting.

I try to rewrite the course section and describe it from the source to the mouth. I will try to add measurement and direction info later. There aren't any famous landmarks nearby, though. —Chris! _ct 05:15, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder in what sense the creek carries domestic sewage and industrial waste water. I'm assuming that San Francisco has modern waste water treatment plants and does not deliberately dump raw sewage into the bay. Does the culvert have sewer lines as well as the creek running through it? Do they cut through horizontally, or do they run parallel to the creek? Where is the sewage supposed to be going when things are working well? Is the creek relatively clean in Glen Canyon Park?

Has the creek got any fish living in it?

Don't think so.—Chris! _ct 05:15, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Any wetlands along the creek? If so, how extensive?

Historically, yes. But not today though—Chris! _ct 05:15, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If possible, I'd describe the parks, including acreage, major features, and plants and animals.

It's possible to find the source elevation by plugging the GNIS source coordinates into Google Earth. Once you have the source elevation, you can add it to the geobox, and you can also describe the creek at least generally in terms of slope; e.g. it falls X feet between source and mouth over a distance of 3.5 miles.

It's often possible to find the size of a drainage basin. This one looks tough, but Friends of Islais Creek might collect such data. If you can find it, that tidbit can be added to the geobox as well.

You might add Friends of Islais Creek to the External links section.

The lower park was badly damaged in 2001. How has it fared since then?

You asked about prose issues, grammar in particular. My advice would be to do any additions and re-writes first and then seek the help of a copyeditor. It's helpful sometimes to work in tandem with other editors who can see things with fresh eyes and point them out.

I noticed several places in the text with phrases like "Today, a small creek remains inside Glen Canyon Park... ". Generally, it's a good idea to avoid "today", "present day", "now", "current" and other time-related words that are inherently ambiguous in context. More specific terms such as "as of 2009", "in the 21st century", "since construction stopped in 1995" and descriptions of that sort are usually better.

Eliminating redundancy, even if it involves only a single unnecessary word, usually improves prose flow. For example, I noticed that the History section starts with "The history of Islais Creek can dated back to the 1700s... " This was missing a word, "be", but it also could be shortened to "The history of Islais Creek dates to the 1700s...". I made the change, but you can probably find other similar places to tighten.

I hope these few comments prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. Finetooth (talk) 03:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: As requested, here is my review. I agree with all of Finetooth's comments above. This is a good article, but it needs some work before it gets up to FA standards. Here are some suggestions for improvement.

It seems that a lot of the sources need to be looked at again to see what else is in them. The book San Francisco: A Natural History looks like it has a lot of information on the history of the creek and would be a good source.
There is a lovely map of the watershed in the External Links that could be used to make a map for this article.
This ref is the source of the 5000 acres, but it refers to the size of the drainage basin (watershed). The article needs to make this clearer - it could be read as meaning that the creek water surface area was 5000 acres - see The historical Islais Creek, at the time the largest body of water within San Francisco covering an area of 5,000 acres (7.812 sq mi; 20.234 km2)[4], ... I also note the ref is "nearly 5000 acres", not exactly 5000 acres> I think the figures used are too exact then and it should be something more like "the watershed was almost 5,000 acres (7.8 sq mi; 20 km²) in area..."
Or ref 1 mentions Franciscan Friars using the creek, but the article does not
A model article is useful for ideas and examples to follow - Columbia Slough is a recent FA on an urban creek that may be a useful model (and was written by Finetooth). There are numerous sections in stream FAs that could be added here - even if there are no animals there now, the historical ones could be added in a Biology section).
There are several places where language needs to be careful - for example, "parking area" seems odd - ships are usually "moored" (see During World War II, it served as parking areas for large ocean-going tugs.)
Would it be possible to get a picture of the Third Street bridge showing the creek? The picture of the train is nice, but it does not show the water. If the water is in the culvert here (and not visible) then perhaps say that it is in a culvert here in the caption.
One more thing - WP:FAC will look at the refs to make sure that they are reliable sources. Some of the refs look fine, but others are questionable. As one example, why is this ref reliable? Why are Pearl Winaker and Bernard C Winn reliable sources on the history?

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:42, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]