Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Willamette River/archive2

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 Ucucha 15:05, 28 October 2011 [1].

Willamette River[edit]

Nominator(s): Jsayre64 (talk) 14:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe that it now meets the FA criteria. After the last FAC, I added alt text to most of the images and copyedited all of the prose. The Columbia River article is an FA; I hope the article about that river's tributary can become featured as well. Jsayre64 (talk) 14:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support—My concerns were addressed. The article seems FA worthy and so I'm giving it my support. Thank you. RJH (talk) 14:35, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment—Okay, I'll be the first to jump in. Overall it is a well-developed article and an interesting read, although it seems quite long. Here's a few points that came up:

~~I'm not sure that I see a point to including the 'File:Oregon Locator Map.PNG' image. It seems redundant with the map just above it, doesn't add anything new and is taking up real estate.~~
~~Could the article give some information about the width and depth of the two channels at the mouth?~~
- I couldn't find that information myself, so I'll mark it as satisfied. Thanks. RJH (talk)
~~"...and that others will occur" doesn't really tell the reader much. Is there any information on the frequency of massive quakes?~~
~~"These included the ... among others." => "among others" is redundant.~~
There is some unnecessary use of the additive terms "also", "another', and "once again". For example: "Fur traders also heavily exploited the Willamette River and its tributaries. During this period, the Siskiyou Trail (or California-Oregon Trail) was also created." See: User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a#Eliminating redundancy.
There doesn't appear to be anything about the Army Corps of Engineers efforts to deepen river channels from the 1820s onwards, nor about the use of the river for shipping bulk cargoes. Can I suggest taking a look at the W. F. Willingham article and see if any of that content can be used to enhance the article?
~~Why is the paragraph on navigability ("Portions of the Willamette River...") in the 'Dams' section instead of the 'Course' section? I was expecting to see something about it in the latter.~~
~~Spaced em-dashes mixed with unspaced em-dashes. MOS:EMDASH~~
- ~~Unfortunately, a spaced em-hash is not one of the valid options at MOS:EMDASH.~~

Otherwise, at first drive through at least, it's looking pretty good. Nice work. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've got the bulk of these issues addressed. I'll work to fix the last few later. Thanks for your comments. Jsayre64 (talk) 23:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Here are the changes I made: [2] and [3]. Does everything look OK? Jsayre64 (talk) 03:30, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Consecutive citations should be in numerical order - for example, [8][11] instead of [11][8]
Footnotes should appear immediately after punctuation with no spaces. Check for other formatting/MOS issues in article text
"The dams on the Willamette's major tributaries are primarily large flood-control, water storage, and power-generating dams. Thirteen of these dams were built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and 11 of them produce hydropower. Most of the other ones are owned by state or local interests." - source?
Material in captions that does not appear in article text should be cited in captions
Why not include Norman in Wortman citations?
Be consistent in when you provide publisher locations
Be consistent in whether you provide publishers for newspapers
Be consistent in whether you cite websites using base URLs or publishers
What is NOAA? PNWS-AWWA? Spell out or link acronyms
Be consistent in whether you use U.S. or United States in publishers that are government departments or agencies
FN 127: page? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed these problems, with two exceptions: I provided publisher locations only in newspaper article citations and, unfortunately, I can't find a page number for that Oregonian article. Thank you for the comments. I would not have spotted those on my own. Jsayre64 (talk) 23:38, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at a randomly selected paragraph. One in the "19th Century development" section that talks about Native Americans.

"They were first led off their traditional lands to the Willamette Valley, but soon were marched to the Coast Indian Reservation." - This sounds too nice compared with what I imagine happened, but I haven't read the sources, so maybe it's accurate.

"In 1855, Joel Palmer, an Oregon legislator, negotiated a treaty with the Willamette Valley tribes, who ceded their lands to non-natives." Same thing.

"The natives were then relocated to a part of the Coast Reservation that later became the Grande Ronde Reservation." Same thing.

It kinda sounds like a description through the lens of the old John Wayne cowboys and indians perspective. Could be wrong. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:55, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I get what you mean. I did not write this part of the article; it was Shannon1. I'm sure that Shannon was trying to stay as neutral as possible, and the sources seem to agree (for the most part) with her wording. However, I added a concise note that the tribes were unhappy about leaving their native lands. Shifting to the POV of the natives, although perhaps ethically correct, would threaten bending the Wikipedia NPOV policy. Jsayre64 (talk) 15:13, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a bit better. But, the current ref used [4] describes the non consensual nature better than the current summary. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 16:09, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I clarified things a bit more. Does the wording have a good enough balance, in your opinion? I want to make sure the article is entirely neutral. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's good enough for that paragraph. I'll check another. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 00:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at another random para.

"About 2.5 million people lived in the Willamette River basin as of 2010. This amounted to about 65 percent of the total population of Oregon."

Wordy. Could be something like the following (there's even shorter versions that I can think of).

"About 2.5 million people lived in the Willamette River basin as of 2010, about 65 percent of the population of Oregon."

The para also has the phrases "as of 2009" and "with populations of 20,000 or more" two times each, so that's overly wordy. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 00:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I used your suggestion for those two sentences. Jsayre64 (talk) 03:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you see anything else in the article that needs to be fixed? Jsayre64 (talk) 03:54, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I'll just go neutral. Each paragraph I look at can be improved some. But, this article is probably in the better half of all FAs. I was hoping I could look at random paras, and not find easy to spot problems, but oh well. I don't want to go through the whole thing para by para, sorry. Go Oregon! - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape review - No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 11:11, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose and comprehensiveness grounds. No deal-breakers in prose seen, but maybe more tidying will be found. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your changes to the article and for your support. Jsayre64 (talk) 14:47, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review: Images are verifiably in the public domain or appropriately licensed (File:WillametteRvrPano edit.jpg is strange in that the file appears to be uploaded by Fir0002, who no longer wants to be part of the project, but the author is Cacophony. I think this is okay because Cacophony later edited the image. An earlier upload by Cacophony was probably deleted.). Jappalang (talk) 02:31, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. I looked up that panorama's FPC nomination and apparently the image used in this article is a newer version modified and uploaded by User:Fir0002. Jsayre64 (talk) 03:22, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks for finding that out. I made changes to the image pages to reflect the origin. Jappalang (talk) 08:52, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Link check - 1 DAB-link fixed, no dead external links, a few minor overlinks fixed, lead links see below. GermanJoe (talk) 15:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support after a complete read-through, comprehensive and well-written. One request regarding wikilinks:

The article lead contain several wikilinks, which are not repeated in main text (tributary, main stem, plate tectonics, and several others). Depending on which link method the article uses ("1 link in lead, 1 additional link in main text" is pretty common), you may need to recheck all lead links and add additional links in main text accordingly. GermanJoe (talk) 15:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your support. Regarding the wikilinks issue, I think the method you suggested is a good one, but should the article have wikilinks that appear in the infobox as well as in the text? Jsayre64 (talk) 23:06, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:OVERLINK - but that specific situation is not clearly covered. What i have seen in a broad range of article is, that links in infoboxes, captions, list tables or other special templates outside of the "normal" prose are not considered against that maximum. As long as you use linking consistantly and follow the basic WP:OVERLINK guidelines, you should be fine. GermanJoe (talk) 14:00, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I hope I fixed all wikilink problems. Jsayre64 (talk) 15:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All good, thank you. GermanJoe (talk) 09:06, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Has a spotcheck of sources for close paraphrasing been done? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:40, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spotcheck Online sources

[Cite 3] provides correct geographical data for all 6 references, calculation of elevation is specifically elaborated. - OK
[Cite 5] reflects the presented information. Used source phrases are clearly quoted and attributed with an immediate ref. - OK
[Cite 6] provides correct flow and discharge data for all 3 references. - OK
[Cite 36] provides accurate background information on native inhabitants for all 3 references. - OK
[Cite 78] provides background information of the Willamette dam system. - OK
[Cite 95] is used twice and provides accurate background information for the 1861 flood. The used quote is clearly attributed as ref. - OK
[Cite 129] cites article information about fish and wildlife. - OK.

Generally the sources appear very diverse and of high quality, none of the checked sources shows evidence of close paraphrasing. GermanJoe (talk) 14:49, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.