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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 not promoted by SandyGeorgia 14:34, 3 December 2009 [1].

Denton, Texas

[edit]
Nominator(s): MahangaTalk 05:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Toolbox

I started working on this article over a month ago. With the help of other editors, the prose and flow has improved significantly. I think it has reached FA quality. MahangaTalk 05:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I have been given the go-ahead by SandyGeorgia to renominate this article.[2]

  • Oppose per criterion three:
    • File:Denton County Flag.jpg - has no license tag (NFCC#6, NFCC#10B and WP:IUP). Additional research should be done, as this would likely be PD due to pre-1.1.1923 publication or publication without copyright notice.
    • File:Dentontexasseal.png - rationale is identical to File:Denton County Flag.jpg. Why are both needed needed to accomplish that goal? NFCC#3A requires minimal use and does not consider the need to "decorate" an infobox. May also be PD, as per above.
      • I'll start off by saying I'm not very familiar with copyright issues, so any assistance in this area would be greatly appreciated. I removed the Denton County flag, since the article is for the city, not county. I can't find any information on the seal, so I have no way of knowing if it is in the public domain or not. I followed other city FAs in assuming it's copyrighted and using a fair use rationale.
    • File:Denton, Texas sightseeing low quality.ogv - should not be using a license with a self modifier; Mahanga created a derivative and has no rights to the original or resulting work. The OTRS ticket for the original releases this under CC-by only; the current CC-by-SA/GFDL license is incorrect.
      • My mistake. Changed it to CC-BY, like the original.
    • Per MOS:CAPTIONS, complete sentences should end in a period (full stop). Эlcobbola talk 15:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I added a period to one of the complete sentence captions. All the other ones are nominal groups and don't need periods per WP:CAPTIONS. Please let me know if I've missed one.
    • These should be easy to remedy. Эlcobbola talk 15:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose by karanacs. The article is in much better shape than some city articles I've seen nominated for FAC - good work getting it this far! Unfortunately, I think it needs more work. Overall, I have issues with the sourcing and with the prose. The prose is okay, but there is a lot of repetition or general wordiness, and the sentences and paragraphs don't always flow well. I've listed examples of other issues below.

  • Lead
    • The prose does not flow well and there is a lot of reptition. Examples University of North Texas, the largest university in North Texas and Geographically, it is situated...
    • There is excess detail. It is not important in the lead to describe the two universities.
    • A Texas land grant led to the formation of Denton County in 1846 - This doesn't make sense and needs to be reworked
    • The establishment of the two universities helped distinguish the city from neighboring regions. - this sentence doesn't give any useful information. distinguish how?
  • History
    • You need to better specify that Europeans began settling the area while it was part of the Republic of Texas.
    • There is no information on native populations after 1800. Did any of the native tribes move to the area as they were pushed out of the United States? I know many migrated to East Texas, and I would assume that some also lived in North Texas. Also, what about the Comanche? Did the Comancheria include the area that is now Denton?
    • Any idea why Denton was chosen as the county seat? Was there something wrong with the other two cities?
    • Have you consulted History of Denton, Texas, from Its Beginning to 1960 (Clarence Allen Bridges)? There is also the freely available History and remniscences of Denton ([3]), which is quite old but may have more information. There may also be useful information in the Southwest Historical Quarterly [4]
    • This source mentions a slave insurrection that appeared to spark a panic across lots of Texas in 1860 [5] (note that this event is mentioned in multiple SW Historical Quarterly articles)
    • Prose doesn't flow well. One paragraph has two sentences on a particular area of the town and then one sentence on city government.
    • Be more specific that I-35 was constructed during this time of population growth - that is not clear from reading the article.
    • The last paragraph in the history section seems to be undue weight and a little like recentism.
  • Climate
    • Need sources for "snow falls a few days a year, if at all", " tornadoes rarely form" and "Flash floods and severe thunderstorms are frequent occurrences"
  • Demographics
    • the Workforce Diversity Plan is not explained, it is cited to a self-published source, and adds very little information to the article. I would recommend removing this.
  • Primary sourcing
    • I'm concerned that there are a large number of self-published sources used. For example, why is the Barnett Shale portion sourced entirely to SPS? There are lots of newspaper sources that could be used.
    • You cannot use a self-published source to justify phrasing like "a major source of retail trade"
    • I don't think a self-published source should be used for The positive response to the courthouse renovation sparked a downtown revitalization program that generated new jobs and reinvestment capital. - the source may be a wee bit biased.
    • Overall, the culture and recreation section is sourced to far too many self-published sources. Many of the festivals, etc, should be mentioned in newspapers. The article should be summarizing what is in those independent sources rather than collecting the SPS (which can lead to OR).
  • Other
    • There is at least one instance where a newspaper is not italicized in the references
    • Need conversions from degrees F to degrees C and from inches to cm.

Karanacs (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - I second Karanacs' concerns - however, these are readily fixable without too much fuss. I have massaged the prose and might do some more. I'll post some queries and comprehensiveness issues below: Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Some sections are a bit disjointed and listy - if possible, some statements giving an overall flavour would be helpful - eg. In the politics section, is the city mainly republican or democrat leaning? (I am guessing the former but might be wrong).
    • Any big parks near the city centre? What about other types of recreational areas? Also, principal churches or places of worship?
    • I don't get an idea of how far Denton is from Dallas and Fort Worth from the article - does anyone commute to either bigger city?
Thanks to those who helped copy-edit the article. English is my second language, so that helps a lot! I'll start working on all the issues brought up as soon as I can. Unfortunately, things have picked up at work after the Thanksgiving break, so it may be a few days. MahangaTalk 19:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The article is good, but I think it's lacking a bit of depth before it can be considered comprehensive. My concerns mostly lie with the demographics and economy sections. The demographics section should put the figures into perspective. For example, was the ethnic make-up of the city unusual? How did it compare regionally and nationally? The same can be said for the figures in the economy section, eg: how did the figure of 16.2% below the poverty line compare to the area and the rest of the US? Also, are there figures on employment/unemployment rate? A couple of other points:

  • Was the place called Peters Colony or Peter's Colony?
  • The info box says Denton was founded in 1857, but the history section isn't clear, it just says that Denton was voted as the county seat in 1857. Was the settlement created specifically for the purpose of becoming the county seat or did it already exist?
  • Instead of "…and manufacturing destination for mills and cottage industries" it might be better to say "…and a destination for the produce of mills and cottage industries".
  • Are there any population figures from the late 19th century? It might be interesting to illustrate the impact of the railway (with its influx of people) by comparing populations before and 20 or 30 years after the introduction of the railway.
  • I'm surprised there's no mention of the American Civil War an it's impact on the article. As a major point in America's history, even if it had no effect wouldn't it be worth mentioning that Denton emerged unscathed?
  • Davenport, Iowa (also currently at FAC) has crime figures in the demography section; if they're available for Denton they might be worth including.
  • "The median income for a household was $35,422, and the median income for a family was $51,419. Males had a median income of $33,698 versus $26,037 for females. The per capita income was $19,365. About 8.7% of families and 16.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.1% of those under age 18 and 7.0% of those age 65 or over.[22]": shouldn't this be in the economy section (perhaps with the map of median family income)?
  • Since it's mentioned that "For every 100 females there were 96.7 males" it doesn’t really add anything to say that "For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.4 males" as there’s not a huge difference. Statistics will bore the reader, so it’s best to keep them to a minimum while still incorporating the important ones.
  • When talking about the city's population in 2008, the past tense should be used as the figure will have changed since. So "Denton has a population of 119,454 according to July 2008 population estimates, making it the 207th largest city in the U.S. and the 23rd largest in Texas" becomes "Denton had a population of 119,454 according to July 2008 population estimates, and was the 207th largest city in the U.S. and the 23rd largest in Texas".
  • "area history and culture" is odd syntax, perhaps "history and culture of the area" would be better?
  • The government section feels a little light. The district Denton is in is currently represented by a Republican in the Texas House of Representatives, but has the district representative always been a Republican? Nev1 (talk) 13:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]


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