Wikipedia:Peer review/Jordan River (Utah)/archive1

Jordan River (Utah)

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I've listed this article for peer review because I'm eventually going to nominate the article for FA. I will add photos in a few weeks. I'm not sure about the format of the pollution section. I feel like something is missing, but I don't know what.

Thanks, Bgwhite (talk) 17:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Nice start, but I do not think this would pass FAC in its current state. There is some missing information and the language needs to be cleaned up in places. Here are some suggestions for improvement.

A model article is useful for ideas and examples to follow - there are several FAs on rivers and streams that might be good models. Finetooth has been the main author for a number of FAs on creeks in Portland, Oregon that might be good models - see Johnson Creek (Willamette River) as one example.
The disambiguation link find in the tool box shows one dab link that needs to be fixed. Two of the images are missing alt text.
The lead seems a bit sparse to me - My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way
As a summary, nothing should be in the lead only. However, I note that there are some things that seem to only be in the lead, for example the other main tributaries of the Great Salt Lake.
Comprehensiveness is a FAC criterion. I find it odd that there is no section on Geology in the article - most of the pollution seems to be mine related, so I think this is especially important to include.
It is also odd that the History section ends in 1850. Even if the River modifications section is seen as part of History (in which case it should be a subsection), it also has some relatively large gaps in its coverage. I also prefer history to be in chronological order if at all possible, but the River mod. section jumps around in time quite a bit. Since they cause trouble later, the mines seem like they should be mentioned in history somehwere.
I also like to mention if tributaries enter on the right or left bank - if river miles are known for tributaries or other features, they are useful to include (sometimes hard to find this though).
SOme dams are mentioned - are there any prominent bridges?
There are also things mentioned in passing like After the 1983-1984 floods, which seem to be crying out for expansion - a sentence or two would probably be enough, but what was the overall effect of these floods?
I like to mention counties in the course section and also like to mention the cities and communities as the river passes through them - my rule of thumb is try and mention all of the important places the stream passes or passes through in Course so that the reader has some idea of where these things are as they read the rest of the article.
For a river that seems to be pretty urban in places (34 percent of the watershed) and which contains the largest city in the state of Utah, this article does not mention much about the urban areas. The dates for founding of the five cities could be included in the the History section, for example. Rough ideas of population growth could also be included.
Watch WP:OVERLINKing - for example the June Sucker and Utah Sucker are each linked twice in the Biology section.
Would "Ecology" be a better name for the Biology section?
The Jordan River Parkway article says it is about 44 miles long. The lead here says the river is about 44 miles long. So how come this article says the parkway is continuous from Utah Lake to the Great Salt Lake and 40 miles long?
Another FA criterion is a professional level of English, which is the most difficult criterion for most articles to meet. This is not bad, but could use a good copyedit before any run at FAC. A few points follow:
According to the MOS, Generally, use either percent or per cent to indicate percentages in the body of an article
There are at least two places where contractions are used (isn't, hasn't) that need to be fixed
The article has several places where there are short (one or two sentence) paragraphs. These impair the flow of the article and should be either combined with other paragraphs or perhaps expanded.
Bullet lists (like the pollution sites) are also usually discouraged in articles, could the material be written as straight text?
There are places where the prose is just clunky and what seem to be erroneous staements result. For example The Jordan River emerged as the only outflow of Utah Lake on the lake's northern end. - this makes it sound as if there are other outflows elsewhere (southern end perhaps). Something like The Jordan River emerged the northern end of Utah Lake, and is its only outflow. would be clearer
Or this Elevations range from over 11,100-foot (3,400 m) Twin Peaks in the Wasatch Mountains to over 9,000-foot (2,700 m) Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains. makes it sound like the lowest point in the drainage basin is over 9000 feet tall. By the way, the convert template is set to adj=on, which gives the ungrammatical "foot" instead of "feet" - I turned it off.
Avoid words like today and current(ly) - they can become out of date quickly. Instead tro to use things like "As of 2010" or "Since YEAR" (fill in the year).

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:11, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Second look by Ruhrfisch

As requested here is a second look at the article.

There is a way to turn off the second word River at the top of the Geobox - ask if you want me to do it or show you how.
Also in the Geobox I would set the district type as "Counties" (not County) and then just have the names of the counties linked (so Utah, not Utah County)
Language still needs some work. The Jordan River emerges from the northern end of Utah Lake, as the lake's only outflow, between the border of Lehi and Saratoga Springs. A border is singular and between two things, so I am not sure something can be between a border. How about something like The Jordan River is the lake's only outflow, and emerges from the northern end of Utah Lake at the border between the cities of Lehi and Saratoga Springs.
I would split this sentence into two: The first dam, known as the Turner Dam, is located in the middle of the Jordan Narrows, 41.8 miles (67.3 km) from the river's mouth and diverts water to the east for the East Jordan Canal and to the west for the Utah and Salt Lake Canal.
Seems like they should enter (not enters) at different river miles: Little Cottonwood Creek and Big Cottonwood Creek enters on the east in Murray, 21.7 miles (34.9 km) and 21.7 miles (34.9 km) from the mouth respectively. Is this a typo? If not I would say they enter at the same place.
I would swap the order of these sentences - the 9 to 12 miles makes more sense after the [current] second sentence. The river then continues for 9 to 12 miles (14 to 19 km) with Salt Lake County on the west and North Salt Lake and Davis County on the east until it empties into the Great Salt Lake.[6][7][9] The length of the river and the elevation of its mouth varies year to year depending on the fluctuations of the Great Salt Lake due to weather conditions.
I really like the 1898 image comparing the two Rivers Jordan!
Could the Desert Archaic period be linked to Archaic period in the Americas?
I would make clearer in the table header what "Historical populations" refers to - assume it is the three counties the river is in?
The History section still seems a bit sparse to me in terms of more recent history.
Per your comment on my talk page I skipped Ecology. Like the carp photo
DEQ needs to spelled out somewhere (Department of Environmental Quality? Dogs Eating Quince?) I would still avoid words like currently, so The entire Jordan River, plus Little Cottonwood Creek, are currently on the 2006 303d list. could instead be something like The entire Jordan River, plus Little Cottonwood Creek, are included on the 2006 DEQ 303d list.
EPA Superfund sites section - I would start with a sentence or two on what the EPA Superfund was/is to provide background and context for the average reader. I would also consider merging the last two paragraphs into one.
With small acreages I usally allow convert to use hectares, which are a more directly comparable unit than square kilometers.

Since you said to ignore them I did not point out or fix most typos, rough spots etc. (though I did fix one funny typo). This still needs a pretty thorough copyedit. Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]