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Talk:Tropical Storm Harvey (1999)/GA1

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GA Review

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Reviewer: Canadian Paul (talk · contribs) 16:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I haven't done a hurricane article in a while, so I'll take on this one, hopefully later tonight. There are no obvious reasons for quickfail nor any issues with disambiguation or external links used as references. The first link under "External links", however, no longer works, so you may want to deal with that. Canadian Paul 16:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

Comments:

  1. Per WP:LEAD, the lead must not introduce information that is not present in the body of the article. Currently the fact that it was "[t]he eleventh named storm and second tropical cyclone of the season" is not mentioned in the body.
  2. In the lead, it is mentioned that the storm "caused extensive flooding"; this seems fairly POV to me (who determines what "extensive" is?) - for example, I did not get that impression from reading the article. I suggest either supporting that assertion with a direct quote/cite or removing it. Also, the lead contradicts itself in the second paragraph: "Harvey caused minor flooding in south Florida"
  3. In the lead, "Damage estimates were light", seems POV to me. Per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, it's probably best just to state the damages and let the reader decide for themselves whether it is "light" or not (or you could do an objective, cited comparison, such as "Harvey was the least damaging storm of 1999" or whatever)
  4. Throughout the article, is there any reason why sometimes use a conversion template is used and other times the conversion is written out manually?
  5. Under "Nova Scotia", second paragraph, "Outside of road infrastructure, effects were also significant." Is there a word missing here? If not it is kind of a meaningless/awkward sentence that disrupts the flow of the passage. This sentence should be improved to more effectively introduce what will be discussed in the paragraph. Something like "Aside from the damage done to road infrastructure, the storm created other problems in Nova Scotia." (Keep in mind that "significant" could be construed as POV)
  6. Under "New Brunswick", "Effects were more minor, but still significant in New Brunswick, in comparison with Nova Scotia." This sound fairly POV to me. Again, per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, it's probably best to just list what happened in the province and let the reader decide for themselves whether or not the effect were "more minor" or "still significant", rather then tell them that that is how they should feel about it.
  7. A problem throughout the "Impact" section, but most notably the first paragraph under "Elsewhere in Canada", is that it needs to develop a narrative flow rather than just list fact after fact. The prose is really choppy here and it makes it difficult to read, when some connecting ideas could greatly improve the flow. For example

"Strong winds were reported in Prince Edward Island, with gusts reaching more than 72 mph (116 km/h). Rainfall was relatively heavy, with a peak of 7 inches (180 mm) in Prince County."

could become

"Strong winds were reported in Prince Edward Island, with gusts reaching more than 72 mph (116 km/h), while rainfall was relatively heavy, with a peak of 7 inches (180 mm) in Prince County."

Or

"In Summerside, at least five roads were closed due to flooding. At Summerside Intermediate School, water entered the mechanical room via the telephone and electrical conduit."

becomes

"In Summerside at least five roads were closed due to flooding and water entered the mechanical room via the telephone and electrical conduit at the local intermediate school."

The other problem is that, in its current form, some of these paragraphs come dangerously close to close paraphrasing whereas, with my second example in particular, its a lot more obvious that I didn't just copy the information from the source, but phrased it in my own words. Aside from the paragraph mentioned above, this is also an issue in the second half of the first paragraph of "Nova Scotia" and the whole second paragraph of that section. Once or twice in my copyedit I improved on this problem as well, so you can see my edits for more examples, but the structure of at least the three aforementioned sections need to flow better.

Additionally, it did need a copyedit, but I've done that myself and hopefully fixed up any problems. One thing I noticed is that "Maccon, Nova Scotia" is probably "Maccan, Nova Scotia", but you'd probably need to dig up the original report that Environment Canada mentions to prove. Anyhow, that's not relevant to a GA pass, so I will put the article on hold for up to seven days to allow for these changes to be made . I'm always open to discussion so if you think I'm wrong on something leave your thoughts here and we'll discuss. I'll be checking this page at least daily, unless something comes up, so you can be sure I'll notice any comments left here. Canadian Paul 21:50, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have fixed everything except for the thing about units of measure abbreviation. It has become almost like a project (WikiProject Tropical Cyclones) standard to allow only miles per hours and millibars to be abbreviated, while everything else can be either way. This practice was found to be acceptable on another recently passed GA of mine.--12george1 (talk) 02:17, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  1. I'm not sure what you're referring to with the above comment, but I was inquiring about the use of templates, not abbreviations. For example, in the Florida section you first write out the conversion (10 inches (250 mm)) and later in the same paragraph you use a template (4 to 7 inches (100 to 180 mm)). I wanted to know why.
  • I switched the 10 inches figure to the next number to explain this to you. The rainfall total is exact in Florida because it is at one location (in case you were wondering, that is the only specific total mentioned in Florida because it is the maximum), while in Lee County, the precipitation totals varied.--12george1 (talk) 15:15, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  1. I notice that you changed "Maccon" to "Maccan". Did you look up the original report or did you just change it because that was my suggestion? If it's the latter, you cannot contradict what the source says on a hunch, you need to properly reference it or revert it back the way it was. If it's the former, you need to cite the original report.
  • After a Google search (and a further search on Google Maps), I could not find a city in Nova Scotia named "Maccon". I believe it must have been a typo or the city was renamed to "Maccan".--12george1 (talk) 15:15, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  1. You still haven't addressed point #3, which also occurs in the third paragraph of the Florida section "Overall, damage from the storm was light, totaling approximately $15 million (1999 USD; $27.4 million 2024 USD)".
  1. You also really haven't addressed point #7 - you copied my examples but you didn't fix the overall problem that the sentences in these section do not flow well and they are too close to the original source material in terms of paraphrasing. A perfect example is "In Howlan, a bridge slightly long than 180 feet (55 m) washed away." There's nothing to connect it to the surrounding sentences and it makes only superficial changes from "a 55 m bridge in Howlan was washed away". Please review the sections I mentioned above for these problems and ensure that you have done more to write these things in your own words. I cannot pass an article for GA that has this much close paraphrasing. Canadian Paul 14:32, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see that you're still actively editing (and nominating other articles for GA), but you haven't edited this article in a while nor responded to the message I left on your talk page. Is there any progress being made on this article? If not, I will have to fail it. Canadian Paul 15:04, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I fixed that suggestion you made most recently, which was to fix this: "In Howlan, a bridge slightly long than 180 feet (55 m) washed away." Anything else I should re-word?--12george1 (talk) 19:43, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like things have been improved now, so I am going to go ahead and pass the article for Good Article status. Congratulations and thank you for all your work. Canadian Paul 21:00, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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