Talk:Ottawa/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mertbiol (talk · contribs) 17:33, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I will review this article. I look forward to working with the nominator and with other contributors. Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 17:33, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Citations needed

I have added some {{citations needed}} templates to statements in the article which are currently unreferenced. I would be grateful if the nominator could address these in due course. Best wishes, Mertbiol (talk) 17:44, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lead section

The second sentence of the first paragraph is very long and I suggest that you split it into two.
References 15 and 17 do not appear to be supporting particularly contentious or controversial statements, so they should be removed from the lead section. Neither ref appears to be used elsewhere in the article at present.
In my opinion the lead is too short and there is not enough about "Ottawa as the capital city". I suggest adding an additional paragraph.

Name

Please add a sentence to say that Ottawa acquired its present name in 1855. You could reuse reference 15 from the lead section for this.
I suggest linking Anishinaabe.

History

Pre-colonization

Reference 21 does not appear to support the date of "ten thousand years ago" for the draining of the Champlain Sea. I also feel that using the word "drain" implies the deliberate action of humans. Would "retreat of the Champlain Sea" be better? (Reference 29 might be of use here.)
I suggest replacing the phrase "wild edible harvesting" with "foraging".
I suggest adding "before the arrival of European settlers" (or similar) after "Local populations used the area for wild edible harvesting, hunting, fishing, trade, travel, and camps for over 6,500 years"
The sentence "Local populations used the area for wild edible harvesting, hunting, fishing, trade, travel, and camps for over 6,500 years." appears to be a direct copy from reference 22.
The sentence "The Ottawa River valley has archeological sites with arrow heads, pottery, and stone tools." also appears to be a direct copy from reference 22.

Further comments to follow. Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 18:18, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Leaving the 10000 years and draining language (see added source for use of both this timescale and the draining language, but added natural for greater clarity). Otherwise, I think I was able to resolve the plagiarism issues and sources are now appropriately paraphrased. Kwkintegrator (talk) 06:44, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pre-confederation

I suggest rephrasing "passed by Ottawa" to "passed the site of modern Ottawa".
Did Étienne Brûlé make any notable comment about the Ottawa area when he passed through? For example, did he identify it as a suitable location for a future settlement?
I suggest breaking the first paragraph into two, with " Philemon Wright, a New Englander, created the first European settlement in the area..." being the first sentence of the second paragraph.
I suggest rephrasing "British authorities were immediately constructing" with "British authorities were starting to construct"
I suggest rephrasing "The canal's military purpose was to provide a secure route between Montreal and Kingston on Lake Ontario bypassing a particularly vulnerable stretch of the St. Lawrence River bordering the state of New York that had left re-supply ships bound for southwestern Ontario easily exposed to enemy fire during the War of 1812." to "The Rideau canal provided a secure route between Montreal and Kingston on Lake Ontario. It bypassed a vulnerable stretch of the St. Lawrence River bordering the state of New York that had left re-supply ships bound for southwestern Ontario easily exposed to enemy fire during the War of 1812."
I suggest rephrasing "Bytown encountered some impassioned and violent times in her early pioneer period that included Irish labour unrest that attributed to the Shiners' War from 1835 to 1845 and political dissension evident from the 1849 Stony Monday Riot." to "The early days of the settlement witnessed episodes of unrest and political dissent, including the Shiners' War from 1835 to 1845 and the 1849 Stony Monday Riot."
I suggest splitting the paragraph that begins "On New Year's Eve 1857" into at least two paragraphs.
I do not understand what is meant by "seasonal water transportation access". Does this mean that the waterways were closed by ice in the winter?
For the "rail lines built in 1854", please use a wikilink or note to indicate which rail lines were built in that year.

Further comments to follow. Best wishes, Mertbiol (talk) 18:42, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It seems Brule's relevancy is solely that he was the first European to transit the Ottawa river, no commentary was made on the site. To my knowledge, there is no Wikipedia notability guideline for something of this nature, and I will defer to your advice @Mertbiol, or others here, as to whether it should be kept.

Took a different option on the "British Authorities" due to myself rewriting that sentence more substantially for readability. Similarly for the Shiners' war and Riot section.

Substantially rewrote the selection of the capital, which seems to have been inaccurate and placed undue credit on Prime Minister John A MacDonald.

All other revisions are implemented. Kwkintegrator (talk) 02:36, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Post-Confederation

There are some long sentences in this section, which should be rephrased to make them more readable.
I would suggest adding more information about the 1900 Hull–Ottawa fire and in particular the reconstruction that followed it.
I suggest starting a new paragraph with "On 1 June 1912..."
I suggest moving the paragraph starting "Ottawa's former industrial appearance was vastly altered by the 1950 Greber Plan" to the "Post-Second World War" section.

Post-Second World War

This section is under-referenced (especially the second and third paragraphs).
There are several long sentences in this section, which are difficult to read.

I am stopping here for now.
As I read further through the article I am finding numerous factual statements that are not supported by references. I will continue to highlight these with {{citation needed}} tags.
Best wishes, Mertbiol (talk) 20:24, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Request input from nominator

Hi @Kwkintegrator: I'm a little concerned that you do not appear to have edited since June 9. Can you let me know if you are able to respond to this GA review please? Thanks and best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 21:00, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Mertbiol, commencing work now, sorry about the delay. I will probably be addressing concerns piecemeal through the next 4-6 days. Kwkintegrator (talk) 16:16, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Kwkintegrator: I will let you work through the points above and I will aim to add more comments next weekend. Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 18:20, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mertbiol, just wanted to let you know I think I've caught up to your edits. No rush on my end, and excellent commentary so far. Kwkintegrator (talk) 03:51, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Geography

"Lower Town", "Centretown" and "Downtown Ottawa" should be reformatted from italics to plain text (with wikilink) per MOS:ITALICS
Please change "Across the canal to the west lies Centretown and..." to "Across the hotel to the west lie Centretown and..." (i.e. lies -> lie)
Please wikilink street names - Bank Street (Ottawa) and Elgin Street (Ottawa).

The third paragraph (starting "Located within the major, yet mostly dormant Western Quebec Seismic Zone...") is about the physical geography of the wider region and I suggest moving it, so that it precedes the current first paragraph.
The sentence "Ottawa sits at the confluence of three major rivers: the Ottawa River, the Gatineau River and the Rideau River." appears to cover very similar themes to the first sentence of the current first paragraph.
Much of the rest of the fourth paragraph, which deals with the Rideau Canal, repeats material already discussed in the history section.
I suggest rephrasing "Across the Ottawa River, which forms the border between Ontario and Quebec, lies the city of Gatineau, itself the result of amalgamation of the former Quebec cities of Hull and Aylmer together with Gatineau." to "Across the Ottawa River, which forms the border between Ontario and Quebec, lies the city of Gatineau, which includes the former Quebec cities of Hull and Aylmer."
I suggest linking "federal crown corporation" to Crown corporations of Canada and please use a capital "C" for "Crown".

Climate

The url for reference [117] (Köppen climate classification) gives a 404 error and the map is missing from the archived url.
The url for reference [120] redirects to a message that states "Your request could not be completed because an error was found." The archive-url does not appear to contain the data listed in the previous four sentences.
Reference [120] also does not appear to support "Ottawa experiences about 2,130 hours of average sunshine annually (46% of possible). Winds in Ottawa are generally Westerlies averaging 13 km/h (8.1 mph) but tend to be slightly more dominant during the winter."
References [120] and [124] do not appear to support the sentence "The highest temperature ever recorded in Ottawa was 37.8 °C (100 °F) on 4 July 1913, 1 August 1917 and 11 August 1944."
The rest of the final paragraph of the climate section is unreferenced.

Neighbourhoods and outlying communities

Reference [139] (ManyEyes Map Viewer) has a dead URL and the archive-url does not show the map. Please use a different ref.
Much of this sub-section is simply a list of neighbourhoods and communities. I am not sure how helpful it is to readers. I suggest splitting the second paragraph into two and trying to expand the discussion of the different areas.

Demographics

The data given in reference [150] (Statistics Canada) do not support the figures given in the first paragraph of this section. I cannot see any mention of Ottawa at the linked URL.
- It is there, in the table
Since Gatineau has its own article (with its own Demographics section) I would suggest that giving data for the Ottawa-Gatineau CMA is not necessary (second paragraph), seeing as the same data is given in the first paragraph for Ottawa city.
- I think with Gatineau serving as a de facto suburb of Ottawa (and being included in the census as such) it probably makes sense to keep this, given metropolitan population estimates are pretty commonplace on wikipedia
Reference [152] appears to indicate that over 25% of the city population is foreign born (rather than over 20% as currently stated).

Economy

Several references in this section are from 10+ years ago. I suggest you try to revise this section with more up-to-date data. Some of this section is difficult to read (lots of numbers, lots of links and, at times, the sentences are long with a repetitive structure). I suggest focusing on only the most important sectors, rather than trying to cover all aspects of the city's economy as the section does at the moment.

I suggest you hyphenate "sixth highest"
The mean total household income for Ottawa would appear to be $82,053 (and not $82,052 as currently stated) per reference [157]
I cannot see how reference [158] supports the statement "The unemployment rate in Ottawa in 2016 was 7.2%, lower than the national rate of 7.7%."
Reference [161] (employment statistics) gives data from 2006. Are more up-to-date figures available?
The sentence "The Ottawa area includes CFS Leitrim and the former CFB Rockcliffe." appears to be unreferenced. I would suggest deleting this sentence as Leitrim appears to be outside the city and Rockcliffe is closed.
The sentences "As the national capital of Canada, tourism is an important part of Ottawa's economy, particularly after the 150th anniversary of Canada which was centred in Ottawa. The lead-up to the festivities saw much investment in civic infrastructure, upgrades to tourist infrastructure and increases in national cultural attractions." appear to be unreferenced.
Reference [164] (City of Ottawa) and reference [165] (Ottawa Citizen) give figures from 2014. Are more up-to-date figures available?
Please rephrase the sentence "The "tech sector" was doing particularly well in 2015/2016." What does "particularly well" mean?
The sentence "The City of Ottawa is the second largest employer with over 15,000 employees." should be moved to the second paragraph (after discussion of the Federal Government, which is the city's largest employer).
Please change "Rural economic activity includes such things as agriculture..." to "Rural economic activity includes agriculture..." in the final paragraph of the section.

Culture

Are there any notable works of literature that are set entirely or predominantly in Ottawa? If so, these should be mentioned in a literature section?
As it stands, I don't think that the first paragraph of this section is very helpful. Much of it is just a list of streets. It might be appropriate to incorporate some of the material from here into the Geography section and then to delete the remainder.
- I disagree here a little bit, especially with regard to the first sentence. The quality of the source on the second sentence also is impressive, and does back up what intuitively feels true to me as an outsider to Ottawa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwkintegrator (talk • contribs) 01:15, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest creating a subsection entitled "Festivals" or similar for the second paragraph.
Much of the third paragraph would seem to fit better in the history section than in the culture section. Speaking as a Brit, I am not sure that the list of events that the Royal Family have been involved in is important enough to keep.

Architecture

I am not sure that architecture can be described as "formalistic". A better word to use might be "formal".
Two thirds of the first paragraph (starting from "Ottawa's domestic architecture is dominated by...") is unreferenced.
I suggest replacing the sentence about the Place de Ville (Tower C) with a sentence about the Claridge Icon, as the latter appears to be the current tallest building in the city.
I am not sure whether "Federal buildings in the National Capital Region are managed by Public Works Canada" is useful in this paragraph.
Reference [199] does not appear to support "its control of much undeveloped land gives the NCC a great deal of influence over the city's development."

Museums and performing arts

Please italicize Maman, per MOS:Italics
The Canadian Museum of Nature was mentioned in the history section and the sentence here includes no additional detail. I suggest deleting this sentence.
The list of museums in the second paragraph is not particularly useful, especially as there is a List of attractions in Ottawa article. I suggest removing this paragraph entirely.
I suggest rephrasing "The Ottawa Little Theatre, originally called the Ottawa Drama League at its inception in 1913..." to read "The Ottawa Little Theatre, founded in 1913 as the Ottawa Drama League..."

Historic and heritage sites

The Rideau Canal is mentioned multiple times in the history section (including its UNESCO World Heritage Site status). I suggest removing it from this section.
The rest of the paragraph is a list of sites, which I don't feel is that helpful. I suggest picking a few site (maybe four or five) and then writing about those in more detail.

Sports

I suggest removing this subsection from the Culture section and creating a new main Sports section.
The first paragraph is very long. I suggest splitting it, possibly into three.
Since there is a Sport in Ottawa article, I suggest restricting this section to professional sports teams and venues only. I suggest deleting mentions to non-professional teams, with the exception of the Carleton Ravens and Ottawa Gee-Gees.
I suggest deleting the table, as it is also included in the Sport in Ottawa article.

Government

I suggest moving this section up the page, so that it is immediately below the Geography section.
- I'd prefer keeping it closer to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwkintegrator (talk • contribs) 02:29, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As a single-tier municipality is defined by the wikilink in the previous sentence, I suggest deleting "As a single-tier municipality, Ottawa has responsibility for all municipal services, including fire, emergency medical services, police, parks, roads, sidewalks, public transit, drinking water, storm water, sanitary sewage and solid waste."
Reference [224] is a dead link and the archive refers to a Mayor O'Brien and not to Mayor Watson. It also does not appear to refer to there being 23 councillors. Please find a more up-to-date reference.
Reference [225] (Tony L. Hill) does not appear to adequately support the second paragraph (for which is is the only reference). Only a single page of the book (p. 185) is included in the ref. I think this paragraph needs at least one (preferably two additional sources).

Transportation

Air

I suggest deleting the IATA and ICAO codes for the airport.

Inter-city trains and buses

I suggest deleting the list of bus operators.
- I'd push back on this, I think it provides value on Ottawa's transit connectivity
I suggest removing the sentence about Greyhound Canada.

Freeways and parkways

Reference [242] (Ontario trans-Canada highway) does not appear to mention Regional Road 174 or Highway 416.
Reference [243] Confederation Boulevard does not appear to support: "The city also has several scenic parkways (promenades), such as Colonel By Drive, Queen Elizabeth Driveway, the Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway, the Rockcliffe Parkway and the Aviation Parkway and has a freeway connection to Autoroute 5 and Autoroute 50, in Gatineau."

Cycling and by foot

The subsection title seems a little odd. It might be better to rename it "cycle paths and pedestianised areas".
I suggest that the first paragraph is updated if possible.
- I checked and the report seems to be deprecated, no source details the numbers in as much detail, and it seems from what I can find like total construction since 2015 is not completely game-changing
Reference [244] (Ottawa Counts) does not appear to support "Numerous paved multi-use trails, mostly operated by the National Capital Commission, wind their way through much of the city, including along the Ottawa River, Rideau River, and Rideau Canal. These pathways are used for transportation, tourism, and recreation. Because many streets either have wide curb lanes or bicycle lanes, cycling is a popular mode of transportation throughout the year."
The URL for reference [247] (Capital pathway) is dead and page has not been successfully archived.
I suggest trying to find a newspaper report to replace reference [248] which is a blog published by BIXI. WP:Primary may apply here.

Education

The third paragraph (starting "Ottawa also has two main public colleges..." is unreferenced.
I suggest deleting the sentence "Other colleges and universities in nearby areas (namely, the neighbouring city of Gatineau)..."
I suggest deleting "famed" from "part of the famed Carnegie library system."
I suggest updating "The library system had 2.3 million items as of 2008."
- Could not find an up to date number, likely due to large electronic collections. I lean in favour of keeping the statistic. I have added some added 2020 statistics on loans, which should help contextualize collection size and use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwkintegrator (talk • contribs) 04:38, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Media

Reference [261] (Find a Newspaper) does not appear to support "Three main daily local newspapers are printed in Ottawa: two English newspapers, the Ottawa Citizen established as the Bytown Packet in 1845 and the Ottawa Sun, and one French newspaper, Le Droit."
The sentence " Multiple Canadian television broadcast networks and systems, and an extensive number of radio stations, broadcast in both English and French." is very general and not very helpful.
"and the parliamentary bureau staff of virtually all of Canada's major newsgathering organizations in television, radio and print." would appear to be unreferenced.
Reference [266] (Canadian Broadcasting Centre) does not appear to support "although it is not the primary production location, nor the technical operations centre for most CBC radio or television programming."

Twin towns - sister cities

This section is unreferenced.

First read through complete

I have now read through and commented on the article once. After the Nominator has addressed and/or responded to the issues that I have raised, I will read through the page again and will likely have further comments. Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 16:58, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Mertbiol, I have gone through your comments, and think I have substantially resolved all of them with a few exceptions. Exceptions are shown in response to your original suggestions by an indented colon here on the talk page with an explanation as to why I disagree with a suggestion. For those I did substantially resolve, in some cases it was following instructions directly, in some cases it was trying a different approach that resolved the issue in another way. I look forward to your second readthrough, and happy to answer any questions in the interim.

Thank you for your great work here, its definitely helping as I review my first GA nominee as well. Kwkintegrator (talk) 04:41, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Second read through

General comments

I have read through the article for a second time. It has already improved considerably since it was nominated. I think that most of the issues with missing or incorrect references have now been addressed. The number of lists has been reduced, as has the repetition.
My main criticism now is that the text does not flow as well as it could, particularly in the history section. (This comes under criterion 1a of the Good Article criteria.) Some of the sentences are a too long to be easily readable and some of the paragraphs jump around a little. (A good rule of thumb is to make sure that the majority of your sentences are of 25 words or fewer.) There are sometimes random facts thrown into the middle of a paragraph that have little relevance to the surrounding sentences. There are also some slightly unusual turns of phrase, which occasionally sound as if they have been translated from French.
I have provided feedback on the article on part of the history section, taking individual sentences one-by-one.

Lead section

I still feel that the lead section is too short. In particular, the paragraph on "Ottawa as the capital city" should be more fully developed. I think it would be worth looking at the article on Washington, D. C. - its lead section is around double the size. (I know that the Washington, D.C. article is an FA and I do think that its lead section is a little too long, but I think that it is a good general guide for the level of detail required.)

Name

Please rephrase "to reference to the Ottawa River" either as "to reference the Ottawa River" or as "as a reference to the Ottawa River".
Please wikilink River Ottawa as this is the first mention in the main body of the text.

History

Pre-colonization

I suggest turning the first sentence around so that it reads: "The Ottawa Valley became habitable around 10,000 years ago, following the natural draining of the Champlain Sea."
I suggest reorganizing the second, third and fourth sentences so that they read: "Archaeological artefacts, including prehistoric arrowheads, tools and pottery, suggest that Indigenous populations first settled in the area around 6,500 years ago. The local Algonquin people lived by foraging, hunting and fishing, and engaged in trade and travel" or similar. I suggest adding as a note “The Algonquins are closely related to the Odawa and Ojibwe peoples." because the article implies that neither the Odawa nor the Ojibwe lived in the immediate Ottawa area. (Is this right?)
I suggest moving the sentence "The Algonquins call the Ottawa River Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi meaning "Great River" or "Grand River"" to a note in the "Name" section, where it is more relevant. Please also reduce the number of references (four references is overkill for a simple sentence like this one).
I suggest deleting the sentence "Three major rivers meet within Ottawa, making it an important trade and travel area for thousands of years. " As you have already said that the Algoquins engaged in trade and travel. (Also, I think you talk about the three rivers in the Geography section!)
I suggest rephrasing the final sentence of the paragraph so that it reads "During the 15th century, European settlers began to arrive and started the colonization of the Ottawa area."
I also suggest wikilinking to European colonization of the Americas.

Pre-Confederation

I suggest splitting this (very long) subsection into two. Perhaps the first half could be titled "Wrightville and Bytown" and the second half could be "Ottawa in the pre-Confederation period" or similar.
First sentence, first paragraph: Please move "in 1610" to the end of the sentence after “Great Lakes”.
First sentence, first paragraph: Please address the repetition of "Ottawa".
First sentence, first paragraph: I suggest rephrasing "navigated the Ottawa River by what would become Ottawa" to read "navigated along the Ottawa River through what would become Ottawa".
Second sentence, first paragraph: I suggest deleting "who had been using the Ottawa River for centuries" so that the sentence ends with "his encounters with the Algonquin Indians".
Third sentence, first paragraph: "Many missionaries followed the explorers and traders. " I think that this sentence either needs to be expanded (e.g. with names of groups of missionaries and the dates that they arrived) or should be deleted. Did the missionaries have any success in converting the Algonquins to Christianity? What was their impact (they are not mentioned again)? (If the missionaries had no lasting legacy, then I suggest deleting this sentence.)
First sentence, second paragraph: I suggest splitting this long sentence in two, so that it reads: "Philemon Wright, a New Englander, created the first non-Indigenous settlement in the area. On 7 March 1800, he founded a lumber town on the north side of the river, across from the present-day city of Ottawa in Hull" or similar.
Second sentence, second paragraph: I suggest reorganizing this sentence so that it reads: "He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers, also created an agricultural community, which was named Wrightsville." (Did Wright choose the name Wrightsville, or was this decided later?)
Final two sentences, second paragraph: I would end the second paragraph before the building of the Rideau Canal is mentioned. The effect of this change is to focus the second paragraph on Philemon Wright and to focus the third paragraph on the Rideau Canal and John By.
First sentence, third paragraph: Please use a capital letter for "canal" in "Rideau Canal" – please double check all other instances to make sure that this is consistent throughout the article. (Similarly "river" where part of a name.)
First sentence, third paragraph: Please wikilink War of 1812.
Seventh sentence, third paragraph: I suggest starting a new paragraph with "Bytown’s population grew"
Eighth sentence, third paragraph: please change "political dissention evident" to "political dissention was evident". (To my British ears "political dissent was evident", but "dissention" might be better in Canadian English.)
Ninth sentence, third paragraph: "In 1855, Bytown was renamed Ottawa and incorporated as a city." This would appear to be a significant event in the history of the city, but it only gets a brief mention. Can you provide more context and detail please?
Tenth sentence, third paragraph: "William Pittman Lett was installed as the first city clerk, guiding it through 36 years of development." How influential was Lett as city clerk? Is he regarded as a "second founder"? What buildings did he commission and/or design? What was his role in securing capital city status for Ottawa. Please also give the dates of his tenure as clerk (1844-1891) in preference to saying "for 36 years". If Lett is only notable for the duration of his tenure (and was otherwise an unremarkable administrator), then I suggest converting this sentence to a footnote.
Fourth paragraph (starting "Selection of Ottawa as the Capital of Canada…"): This paragraph is under-referenced. Reference [51] does not appear to support much of the content in the middle of the paragraph. I suggest a comprehensive rewrite of this paragraph, incorporating additional references.
First two sentences, fourth paragraph: Both of these sentences (starting "Selection of Ottawa as the Capital of Canada…" and "The governor-general of the province…") are long and are not particularly easy to read. Please rephrase, splitting into three if necessary.
Fourth sentence, fourth paragraph: Which Queen? (You only say Victoria in the picture caption that comes after this paragraph). Please wikilink to Queen Victoria.
Fifth sentence, fourth paragraph: I suggest rephrasing "the capital was split into two rotating cities" to "capital status was held on a rotating basis by Quebec City and Toronto" or similar.
Seventh sentence, fourth paragraph: The meaning of "This contention led to the breaking of the dynamic legislative role in frequently relocating the seat of government" is unclear, especially the phrase "dynamic legislative role".
Eighth sentence, fourth paragraph: "The legislature deferred authority to the Queen…" The Queen delegates authority to the legislature – not the other way round! Please find a way of rephrasing this sentence. Perhaps "The legislature requested that the Queen make a final decision" would be better?
End of fourth paragraph: When did the Canadian parliament move to Ottawa? You have written that the decision was ratified in 1859. Did the parliament pack up and move immediately, or was there a delay while suitable buildings were constructed?
First sentence, fifth paragraph: I suggest rephrasing "The choice turned out to be Ottawa for two main reasons" as "Ottawa was chosen as the capital for two main reasons" or similar.
Eighth sentence, fifth paragraph (starting "Ottawa was the only settlement of any substantial size…"): I suggest moving this sentence, so that follows the third sentence starting "Secondly, Ottawa was approximately…). I also suggest rephrasing "Ottawa was the only settlement of any substantial size" to "Ottawa was the only substantial settlement…" or similar.
The sixth paragraph (starting "Starting in the 1850s…") seems a little disjointed. The third and fourth sentences (starting "The original parliament buildings…") would seem to fit better with the discussion of the ratification of 1859 at the end of the fourth paragraph.

Stopping here for now

I hope the above suggestions are helpful. The task now is to make the text as clear and readable as possible. The article as it stands has been written by multiple people making small contributions over a long period of time and I think this has resulted in its current, somewhat disjointed feel. I think by polishing the text, we can produce an article that is a fitting celebration of and tribute to Canada's capital city.
Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 12:19, 31 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Mertbiol, I have gone through and I think substantially addressed most of your points in some form. Looking forward to the next portion of your readthrough. I very much appreciate your comments in quotation marks, they helped make this a reasonably fast process of locating and fixing.

The major exception is the lead, which I think I will get around to in your next round, given that I'll have gone through more of the article and have a more comprehensively edited document to pull lead material from.

Final note, there seems to be some anon IP addresses doing a lot of editing on here as of the last month, so some things are changing that aren't me. These seem to mostly be good edits, just flagging for you that you might want to look at version history to see if any major changes have been made that were not me. Kwkintegrator (talk) 20:01, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Kwkintegrator: I think we are really making progress. I had noticed the anon IP address making changes, and I agree that they are mostly positive. I'll have further feedback for you on Friday morning. Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 20:36, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Continued comments

Selection of Ottawa as the capital

I suggest starting the first sentence of this section with "The selection of Ottawa…" and not "Selection of Ottawa…"
Please change "all had legislators dissatisfaction with Kingston” to “all had legislators dissatisfied with Kingston".
Please change "and study of future capitals included the then-named Bytown" to "and study of potential candidates included the then-named Bytown".
Please change "1844 the Queen's acceptance…" to "In 1844, the Queen's acceptance…”
Please insert a comma after "parliamentary vote" in "acceptance of a parliamentary vote moved the capital to Montreal"
I suggest starting a new paragraph with "In 1844, the Queen's acceptance…".
In British English, "series" is a singular noun, so I would prefer to see "a series of votes was held" rather than "a series of votes were held". However, Canadian English may differ on this point.
Please change "The successful proposal however," to “However, the successful proposal”
Please change "was for the capital to be split into two rotating cities: Quebec City and Toronto" to "was for capital status to alternate between Quebec City and Toronto".
I suggest changing "this contention" to "this dispute" or even "this impasse" or similar.
I suggest changing "the legislature's role in relocating" to "the legislature's role in deciding" or similar.
I suggest changing "after reviewing proposals from various cities, selected the recently renamed Ottawa. The Queen sent a letter to colonial authorities selecting Ottawa as the capital, effective December 31, 1857" to "after reviewing proposals from various cities, selected the recently renamed Ottawa as the capital, effective December 31, 1857. "
I suggest splitting "George Brown, briefly a co-premier of the Province of Canada, attempted to reverse this decision, but was unsuccessful, and the Queen's choice was ratified by the Parliament in 1859, with Quebec serving as an interim capital from 1859-1865" into two separate sentences.
I suggest replacing "The move-in process began in 1865…” with “The relocation began in 1865…"
I suggest deleting "and the buildings were generally well received by legislators."
I suggest changing "less prone to rampaging politically motivated mobs" to "less prone to politically motivated mob violence".
Please check all occurrences of "Parliament Buildings" and "Parliament buildings". Please make sure that your capitalization of "Buildings" is consistent throughout the article.
Please check capitalization of "centre, East and West Blocks".
Please expand on this sentence "At the time, this was the largest North American construction project ever attempted and Public Works Canada and its architects were not initially well prepared." What was the result of the lack of preparation/experience by Public Works Canada? Was the project severely delayed? Did buildings fall down? Were there legal problems? Etc

Post-Confederation

I suggest rephrasing "Rail lines built in 1854 connected Ottawa to areas south and to the transcontinental rail network via Hull and Lachute, Quebec in 1886" to "Rail lines built in 1854 connected Ottawa to areas south and, from 1886, to the transcontinental rail network via Hull and Lachute, Quebec."
Please provide a year of publication (and preferably an ISBN) for "Ottawa, An Illustrated History, John H. Taylor" ref [73].
Please check the capitalization of "North" in "It began as a chimney fire in Hull on the North side…"
I suggest rephrasing "spread widely throughout many wooden structures" to "spread rapidly between the wooden buildings" or similar.
I suggest splitting this sentence into two "The fire had a disproportionate effect on west end lower-income neighbourhoods, but also spread among many lumber yards, a major part of Ottawa's economy. "
I suggest starting a new paragraph with "The location of what is now Confederation Square was a former commercial district…"
Please rephrase and shorten (very hard to read): "a former commercial district centrally located in a triangular area downtown surrounded by historically significant heritage buildings which include the Parliament buildings".
Are you able to source a photograph of Confederation Square for this subsection please?

Post-Second World War

Please change "more befitting a location for Canada's political centre" to "more befitting for Canada's political centre".
I suggest splitting this sentence in two (56 words currently) "Greber's plan included the creation of the National Capital Greenbelt, the Parkway, the Queensway highway system, the relocation of downtown Union Station (now the Senate of Canada Building) to the suburbs, the removal of the street car system, the decentralization of selected government offices, the relocation of industries and removal of substandard housing from the downtown."
I suggest rephrasing "In 1958, the National Capital Commission was established as a Crown Corporation from the passing of the National Capital Act to implement the Greber Plan recommendations—which it conducted during the 1960s and 1970s" to "The National Capital Commission was established in 1958 and was responsible for implementing the Greber Plan recommendations in the 1960s and 1970s."
I am not sure that the following two sentences are sufficiently important to remain in the article. I suggest you remove them altogether. (None of the reports/plans appear to have Wikipedia articles.): "In the 50 years prior to 1950, other capital improvement plans had failed to be implemented. These included plans from the 1899 Ottawa Improvement Commission (OIC), the Todd Plan in 1903, the Holt Report in 1915 and the Federal District Commission (FDC) which was established in 1927."
Please correct that grammar in "From 1931–1958, City Hall had been from at the Transportation Building"
I suggest changing "the National Capital Region had a building boom" to "there was a building boom in the National Capital Region".
Please check the hyphenation of "high tech" and "high-tech"
Reference [100] (Canada National Research Council) does not appear to support "Ottawa… was nicknamed Silicon Valley North". Please also check whether it adequately supports the remainder of the paragraph.
Please add a comma after "provincial and federal governments responded to a land claim submitted by the Algonquins of Ontario".
I suggest deleting "and negotiate other conditions for this release."
Should "In October 2012, City Council" read "In October 2012, the City Council"?

Geography 2

Reference [111] (Urban Geology of the National Capital Area) does not appear to support "Ottawa is located within the major, yet mostly dormant Western Quebec Seismic Zone"
I suggest rephrasing the first sentence of this section to read: "Ottawa is in the Western Quebec Seismic Zone and is occasionally struck by earthquakes."
Please add more detail about the geology of the city.
First sentence, second paragraph. I suggest rephrasing "Ottawa is situated on the south bank of the Ottawa River and contains the mouths of the Rideau River and Rideau Canal" to "Ottawa is on the south bank of the Ottawa River where it is joined by the Rideau and Gatineau Rivers and the Rideau Canal."
I suggest deleting "The Ottawa and Gatineau rivers were historically important in the logging and lumber industries and the Rideau as part of the Rideau Canal system for military, commercial and, subsequently, recreational purposes" as you have covered this in the history section.
I suggest deleting "The Rideau River got its name from early French explorers who thought the waterfalls at the point where the Rideau River empties into the Ottawa River resembled a "curtain". Hence they began naming the falls and river "rideau" which is the French equivalent of the English word for curtain. The Ottawa river was a name given to the river by European settlers derived from an Algonquin word, however Algonquins call the Ottawa River Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi meaning "Great River" or "Grand River"." as this material is more appropriate for the Ottawa River and Rideau River articles.
The paragraph beginning "The Rideau Canal (Rideau Waterway) first opened in 1832..." is unreferenced.
Reference [119] (Rideau Canal Skateway – National Capital Commission) appears to be dead and the url has not been archived.
Please delete "which stretches 202 km (126 mi) to Kingston" from the fourth paragraph - you have given the length of the canal in the third paragraph.
Reference [122] (Centretown Community Design Plan) appears to suggest that Downtown is a part of Centretown, which contradicts the articles on the two areas on Wikipedia. I think this paragraph (and the next one) need to be rewritten and better references found that explain the relationship between these two areas.
Please use a capital "C" for "Crown" in "Crown corporation".
I suggest deleting the sentence "The NCC, through its responsibility for planning and development of these lands, is a contributor to both cities."
I suggest moving the paragraphs starting "The older part of the city...", "Centretown is next to downtown", and "Across the Ottawa River" into the "Neighbourhoods and outlying communities" subsection.
I suggest creating a new subsection called "Waterways" or similar for the paragraphs starting "Ottawa is situated on the south bank...", "The Rideau Canal (Rideau Waterway) first opened...", "During part of the winter season the..."

Climate 2

Please change "with each month having and average of" to "with each month having an average of"
Please check the spelling of "dryest". In British English, it would be "driest".
Should "lake effect" be hyphenated in "lake effect cells"?
I suggest moving "The highest temperature ever recorded in Ottawa was 37.8 °C (100 °F) on 4 July 1913, 1 August 1917 and 11 August 1944" so that it become the final sentence of the first paragraph of this subsection.

Neighbourhoods and outlying communities 2

I suggest moving this subsection so that it comes above the "Climate" section and perhaps it should be the first subsection of the "Geography" section.
The sentence starting "The city has a main urban area..." has too many references - please reduce to three maximum. You could combine them, if you feel it is necessary to keep them all.
I suggest deleting "within the city's post-amalgamation limits" as it is obvious that you are talking about the city today.
Please change "The main suburban extend..." to "The main suburban extends..."
Please delete "Notably" from the start of the final paragraph of this subsection.

Stopping here for now. Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 10:02, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Status of the review

Hi @Kwkintegrator:
As I work my way through the article for a second time, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the amount of work still left to do. Normally the second pass of a review is a "polishing exercise"; however, there are still missing and incorrect references, the paragraph structure and wording is still a fair way from being GA quality, and there is a some of trimming of irrelevant material needed.
While it is good to see an IP editor making edits (and their edits have been positive) it is difficult to pin down a version of the article to review, if it is continually changing. Coupled to that, I am also a little concerned that your schedule means that you are only able to respond to my feedback once a week or so.
I will need to go through the article in detail again for a third time. At our current work rate, this means that I am unlikely to be able to promote it to GA status before the beginning of October. In principle, I am happy to continue on, but I wanted to ask your opinion before I provide further comments. Are you happy to continue or would you prefer to work on this article outside the pressure and constraints of this review? If we were to agree to end the review now, before the article reaches GA quality, then it would be easier for you to get feedback and input from other editors, including from those at Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada, which appears to be a very active WikiProject.
I do feel that we have made substantial progress and, as I say, I will continue if you want to do so too. However, I think it is only fair to let you know how far I feel this article is from GA status at the moment. I am very happy to invest my time in this review, because I think it is right that the article on Canada's capital is a Good Article.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Best wishes, Mertbiol (talk) 10:59, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A lot to talk about here, @Mertbiol!

Great edit suggestions, per usual.

1) I've given a message to the IP address, though I think its unlikely they'll ever see it due to the nature of the non-account editing process. I think that's the best that can be done short of requesting semi-protected status, which I don't think is appropriate just for the purposes of a GA review.

2) On the schedule element, I really can't promise more than once a week. Wikipedia is ultimately another thing I do off the side of my desk (as I'm sure you do too!), but I don't really foresee myself making more time than I currently am, but if you give bigger sets of reviews, I will likely get to them all once I'm in that state of workflow.

3) I think my opinion of the quality of the article is different than yours and I do think it meets GA standards/criteria as is, but I am completely willing to continue going through as we have been doing, and I do agree that the quality has improved substantially.

4) That said, if this review is causing issues for you, GA review really is not supposed to be prolonged and drawn out, so I completely get if you want to fail it, that's the way it goes sometimes. You've certainly put in a lot of time on the reviewing side, more than I imagine is usual, and I don't want to inconvenience you if it is starting to feel like a slog. I came across this article 10 years after the last GA review, and I imagine it may continue improving and someone else will do a 3rd attempt in a year or two no matter what.

5) On the WP:Canada point, I don't foresee myself likely to continue doing much work here if the GA process isn't active, I mainly just saw it and thought it was close to GA quality and thought I'd take a punt on a review, I'm not closely emotionally entangled with Ottawa.

Conclusion: To answer your question on a path forward I am happy to keep going, I think it feels very close, but if I do, I will likely will continue at about my current pace. But if you want to cut loose here, I'll have no hard feelings and I think we've left this in a much better place.

Happy to talk further, Kwkintegrator (talk) 00:53, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot another thing: I've gone through your current set of comments,

I kept Centretown and Downtown separate, the WP articles reflect the border at Gloucester Street.

On deleting the pre-National Capital Commission elements, I kept them but focused on making the relevance more clear (Relevance of the former plans as temporary compared to the permanent nature of the NCC. I also kept the "other conditions" relevant to the current Land Treaty negotiations, as that is something actively highlighted in the source material, and is not unusual with Canadian land claims settlement.

Otherwise, I think I've substantially followed all of your other points, your suggested wording for sentences continues to be appreciated. Kwkintegrator (talk) 00:59, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Kwkintegrator: I've just logged in, around 18 hours or so since your last contribution, and in that time we have had twelve edits from three different editors. Most of the edits are minor, but there have been two big deletions (one of which was partially reverted) and some layout changes as well. Who knows what the article will look like by the time you are next able to work on it?

With great regret, I have decided that it's best to end the review now and to fail the article. It is a real shame, because I have put a lot of effort into my comments, and into checking those references that I could. I think the article is at the point where, if it were nominated again almost immediately, and the nominator was able to make changes pretty much every day, then it would reach GA standard within the typical one-to-two-week timeframe. However, I would recommend to any prospective nominator, that they seek a peer review (either formally or informally) from Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada before requesting a GA review.

I was a little disheartened to read that you had nominated the article as "a punt". Committing to a nomination is a serious business and you need to be prepared to respond promptly to comments. It is more than a little disrespectful to a reviewer, who is committing their time in good faith to help improve a page, if you have made the nomination on a whim. (I had noticed that you had made only four edits to the article before nomination.)

Thanks for all your work; the article has improved greatly over the past six weeks. I wish you well on your Wikipedia journey and maybe our paths will cross again.

Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 19:22, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It was a pleasure working with you @Mertbiol. I want to apologize for insulting you, this was not my intention, I suppose what I was getting after was that when I did my work on the article, I felt surprised it had not already reached GA status, given how I perceived its quality.

I had read what was expected of me before going through the process, so I wouldn't call it a whim, just a candidate article that I felt would be easy to work with for the first time I had ever nominated.

I really do appreciate your advice for my future work in this space, and thank you again for the quality of your input and the care you put into your recommendations.

All the best, and I too hope to see you around in this space.

Best wishes, Kwkintegrator (talk) 19:51, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Final verdict

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

The article has improved immeasurably since nomination, but although close, it is not yet up to GA standard.

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
There are several very long sentences, which are difficult to read. Sometimes the written English is not as clear as it should be. The lead is not a good enough summary of the article.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
Although over 100 references have been added by the nominator since the review began, there are still several statements that are not adequately supported by the current citations.
Note: Copyvio detects a possible plagiarism violation (48.2%). I have read the article history and it is clear that [1] has copied from Wikipedia and not the other way round.
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
Comment for a potential FA nomination: There are few times in the second half, where some paragraphs degenerate into lists.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
There are no edit wars, but there are a lot of edits being made by contributors other than the nominator. This has made it very difficult to pin down a version of the article for review.
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
The images all appear to be suitable and are correctly licensed.
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
It is with great regret that I am failing the article. Unfortunately the large number of edits from contributors not participating in the review, coupled with the restricted availability of the nominator has made future progress difficult. Under these constraints, I am not able to see a pathway to GA status within an acceptable timescale.
I would recommend to anyone considering renominating this article, that they seek a peer review (either formally or informally) from Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada before requesting a GA review. In particular, all citations must be rechecked.