Wikipedia:Peer review/List of tributaries of Larrys Creek/archive1

List of tributaries of Larrys Creek

This peer review discussion has been closed.
This is a list of all 42 named tributaries within the Larrys Creek drainage basin. I plan to take it to WP:FLC after this peer review and would like feedback on all aspects of the list. I am particularly interested in the tables and their layout - should they all be forced to be the same width? Should there be headers on the small tables of tributaries of tributaries? I see this as a model article for future similar lists and would like to get it as close to right the first time as possible.

Thanks in advance for any feedback, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

• Wow. This took awhile, didn't it....Ummm, let's see....You'll need a reference for the "clear-cut in the 19th century" (I can't believe you need another =D) The topic isn't the most notable, but good job! the_ed17 00:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks so much - I appreciate the review and added the ref for clearcutting. It did take a while, but once I started I just couldn't stop and here we are. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Comments from The Rambling Man (talk · contribs)

Heh, my chance to help you...

• Any reason why you don't use the {{convert}} template?
  • We used it in List of Pennsylvania state parks and it was used so much it stopped working (so the bottom of the list had broken conversions), plus it was really slow. I have avoided it since, but know it has been made smaller and better since then. I can add it back if that is best, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Not that essential as long as you use non-breaking spaces and keep consistent with conversion values and unit identifiers. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
      • I do and I double check all the conversion calculations with Google, so done, thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 10:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Link clear cutting in the lead.
  • Done, thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
• "while the remaining 15 are unnamed streams in named valleys (i.e. 13 hollows, one cove, and one swale)" (personal issue) I hate text in the prose in parentheses, can't you flow this information nicely?
  • I tend to overuse parentheses, but I think I fixed this (but I probably screwed up the colon), thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
• "...name - 27 ..." - probably needs to be an em-dash - check WP:DASH...
  • Done, thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
• "(example: "Pond Hollow")" ditto. Why not "...for example, "Pond Hollow"."?
  • Good call, done, thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
• Any chance of forcing column widths across all tables to be the same?
  • Done - I had to figure out how to do it in the tables without headers. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
• You ought to avoid "See below" in the top row of a table which is sortable... What does it really mean? Ditto for Source.
  • Out - replaced with "--" is that OK? Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
• Don't overcapitalise - Mouth elevation, Source coordinates, River miles, Watershed area... etc is fine.
  • Fixed, thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
• "(SGL) No. 114" vs "SGL No. 114" - and what's SGL?
  • Pennsylvania State Game Lands - the first use in parenthesis "(SGL)" follows this full name and is to give the abbreviation, which is used afterwards. Would spelling it out each time as "State Game Lands" be better? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I think so, I had no idea what an SGL was. By all means discuss the SGL in the lead, abbreviate it there and then use SGL in the table, that's an alternative. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
      • Excellent idea, I added (SGL) to the intro where the Pennsylvania State Game Lands were already discussed and every mention in the first list is now a wikilinked SGL. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 10:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• The asterisk is almost impossible to see - why not add it to remarks? What does it mean?
  • Thanks - there was a comment in the article that The names of streams which have at least one named tributary of their own are marked with an asterisk. but I removed that. I have added a letter note in place of the asterisks instead, with a note for the First Fork, another for the Second Fork, and a third for all the other tribs. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• "All other tributaries are less than 5%." - 5% of what? it's not clear.
  • changed it to "...5% of the total area." in each case, thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Couple of link issues - check this out...
  • Both fixed now, thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Otherwise all good! The Rambling Man (talk) 18:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks so very much for a very helpful review, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Further comments in-line ↑ somewhere... The Rambling Man (talk) 06:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Found them, thanks, all of your concerns are now fixed or addressed. I will submit this to FLC in a day or two. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 10:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
      • Well, in the unlikely event that I miss you posting it at FLC, please give me a shout! All the best, The Rambling Man (talk) 11:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Pete comments: So…looks like you've gotten some excellent feedback, my comments are much more limited as yet. Here they are, for what they're worth:

• I'd like to see a heading before the first chart like "Lower course." Took me a moment to understand what the different charts were -- had to scroll down and back.
  • Thanks, I added "Main stem tributaries" diff, to avoid repeating the name of the article (a MOS no-no). Is that what you meant? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• On the coord template, two things. Neither is likely to be resolved here, but just because it's something that bugs me I'm mentioning anyway.
  • The repeated "globe" icon serves no purpose, clutters an already-full chart. If it can be eliminated in the chart, it should be.
    • It is part of the {{coord}} - if you click on the globe, it takes you to a map on Wikipedia, which is not detailed enough for the purposes of this list. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I always wonder how many people actually click on the coordinates, and how many of those who do actually realize that the information presented there is useful (since it looks so generic on the first page you get to.) My guess is, VERY few in both cases. I wish something could be done about this, though I don't know what it is. I know this is very much outside the scope of your list, but I'm curious about your thoughts.
    • I have sometimes added an explanatory note to clickable maps (where you can click on a dot and it takes you to the article for that place). Perhaps an explanatory note would help - I personally like these linked coordinates as I use the USS topo maps and Google Earth via them, but agree if you don't know what they, they are not very useful.

I'd offer more detailed feedback, but lists of this caliber are kind of new to me. I'll keep poking around, and let you know if I think of anything else. But, very nice, on the whole -- good work! -Pete (talk) 06:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks very much for the helpful comments, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

  No problem, glad to help. I never realized that about clicking on the globe…kind of illustrates my point about the thing not being as "visibly useful" as it could be! I'm so conditioned to believe that every image on a MediaWiki site just links to the Image:Blahblah page, I'd never bothered to click it. Great tool though, glad you pointed it out! (On the first one, I don't see how my phrasing repeats the article title, but…I also think your phrasing is just fine too.) -Pete (talk) 03:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry to be unclear, I was trying to avoid calling the list "List of tributaries of Larrys Creek", thus repeating the title Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)