Wikipedia:Peer review/List of National Monuments of the United States/archive1

List of National Monuments of the United States

• 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 February 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.

Discussion was closed by {[User:Reywas92|Reywas92]] (the peer review requestor) on March 9. doncram (talk) 23:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I have fully expanded this list to have nice descriptions of every monument, a reference for every monument, and a lead section. It, however, failed its FLC mainly due to lack of copyediting/proofreading. I would really appreciate a thorough review of this list, especially on the descriptions of the 100 monuments. I'd be happy to review your article in return. Thanks!! Reywas92^Talk 16:53, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: In this particular case, it made more sense to make proofing changes directly rather than to write sentences about small things like lower-casing "national monument" in most cases. I revised the lead to make it a bit tighter and to substitute a few active-voice constructions for passive. I found the introductory paragraph to the first table a bit confusing and tried to clarify it. I got a bit cross-eyed by the end of the 100 monuments, so it would be a good idea to look at what I've done to make sure I didn't introduce a typo somewhere. I tried not to, but I don't always see them.

This is an impressive list, and I think it has few remaining problems related to the MoS. I didn't check the 100 image licenses, but the images look good. Best of luck with your next run at FLC.

If you find this review helpful, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 23:47, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! One thing: Is it really necessary to have a non-breaking space for every single instance of a number? I take it that it's for when they must be together, like measurements. Reywas92^Talk 01:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Good question. WP:NBSP suggests using them "when necessary to prevent the end-of-line displacement of elements that would be awkward at the beginning of a new line... ". It then gives examples, which include constructions like 7 p.m, Boeing 747, £11 billion, 5° 24′ 21.12″ N, and the first two items in 7 World Trade Center, as well as things like 19 kilograms. Because I've seen the lack of non-breaking spaces become an issue at FAC, I have a tendency to overdo it just to be safe. Adding them is a bit of a nuisance, but it doesn't seem to cause harm. Finetooth (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Doncram comments: I'll have more comments later, but to start let me just focus on the matter of how many National Monuments there are. The article's first sentence is "The United States has 100 protected areas known as national monuments." Having worked on many list-articles about U.S. national historic landmarks and other NRHPs, I know that it is a feasible and quite good contribution to make, to establish how many there are. For state-specific lists of national historic landmarks, there exists an official Department of the Interior document listing them all and providing a total count, which can be used as a source, although that often needs updating for various reasons. Do you have a source for your assertion there are 100? I would tend to believe you, that there are exactly 100 tabulated below. However, for it to be obvious that there are 100, for anyone to determine by inspection of your table that there are 100, the table would need to be numbered. Would it be possible to add a small number, perhaps in the lower left of your first column cells, in the main table? Also, when I look at the smaller table giving subtotals by agency, I can add the numbers along the diagonal in my head. They add up to 105. I wonder if the 100 figure is the current number, while some of the 105 are former National Monuments. I haven't reviewed the list-article to see how it treats former National Monuments. More later. doncram (talk) 01:31, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather not number each one because that would imply that they actually are numbered, and it would be completely arbitrary (alpha, state or date?). Adding the numbers in the table does total 105, but you forgot to take into account that 5 are listed twice. Unfortunately I do not have a source saying that there are 100. This is because some are brand new (three in 2009), and because they are managed by multiple agencies that can't seem to get a unified list together. My best source would be this one, which has a complete listing of them, but it has one that is no longer a NM and is missing the four most recent; none actually give a number. This list does not have former monuments because it is long enough already and there are many former ones to keep track of, though the above link does document those as well. The article has a link to our incomplete list of them. Thanks for your initial review and I hope you can provide more! Reywas92^Talk 01:48, 3 March 2009 (UTC)