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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 Ian Rose 00:35, 16 March 2012 [1].

Missouri River

[edit]

Missouri River (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Shannºn 23:44, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've worked on the Missouri River article for something like half an year since the last (and third) FAC. Between then and now I have thoroughly copyedited the page, completely rewritten three sections (including the lead) and addressed all issues brought up in previous reviews, in the fear of breaking the record for most failed FACs on WP. The page has been a good article for over nine months now; overall I think it is comprehensive and well-referenced enough to deserve featured status.

Missing alt texts, broken links and dablinks have been repaired as of the day of the nomination for the convenience of the FA reviewers.

Shannºn 23:44, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose at this time. Improvements have been made since the previous nomination, but I still feel the article does not meet the FA criteria. A sampling of concerns:

  • "However, his reputation was enhanced in 1720 when the Pawnee–who had earlier been befriended by Bourgmont–massacred the Spanish Villasur expedition near present-day Columbus, Nebraska on the Missouri River and temporarily ending Spanish encroachment on French Louisiana." - source?
  • "By the early 21st century, declines in populations of native species prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue a biological opinion recommending restoration of river habitats for federally endangered bird and fish species." - source?
  • Numerous inconsistencies in reference/citation formatting, and some incomplete citations. Journal articles without weblinks need page numbers. Same with newspapers.
  • Considerable sandwiching of text between tables and images - on my screen, the Navigation section is actually made quite difficult to follow because of the layout
  • MOS issues - hyphens/dashes, overlinking, etc
  • File:Pick-Sloan_Plan.png: source link returns error. Same for File:Yellowstone_(steamboat)_aground.jpg, File:Missouririver1.jpg, File:Nishnabotna_River_aerial.jpg
  • What makes the Ezine article, which triggered the spam filter when I tried to note it here, a high-quality reliable source? Nikkimaria (talk) 05:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have addressed all the above comments except maybe overlinking. Could you please specify which section(s) to look at? Also, the Ezine reference (which I replaced) did not have a URL, so I can only wonder how it triggered the spam filter... Shannºn 22:26, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Some reference formatting I noticed right away (in the five or so minutes I looked):
  • Some citations for PPL Montana/pplmontana.org seem to be duplicated; also, use one of the two names consistently
  • A fair few of the citations have inconsistent (to the assumed article standard of YYYY-MM-DD) date formatting
  • If you're going to use cite doi, make sure ALL names are formatted the way cite doi does it, or copy the information into a different cite template
  • Check all the ISBN numbers for consistent use of dashing.
This is by no means an exhaustive review, however. ClayClayClay 06:26, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done, except I'm not really sure what you mean by "all names are formatted the way Cite doi does it," as far as I know this template automatically fills out the refs, and I have limited control over what it actually does. Shannºn 06:51, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What I mean is, since Cite doi formats its references a certain way, to use consistent style either all references should be formatted that way or Cite doi would not be appropriate: see Template:Cite doi#Formatting. ClayClayClay 19:52, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I think I'll use a different cite template, then, since I don't want to convert the 200-ish other citations instead :P Shannºn 20:06, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Finished that.Shannºn 01:22, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Still seeing MOS issues - overlinking and dash problems just in the lead. Use either spaced endashes or unspaced emdashes; don't link very common terms like Europe, and don't relink terms, especially not in close proximity (like Cenozoic twice in as many paragraphs). Lots of citation issues - compare publisher formatting on FNs 5 and 6, remove stray punctuation marks as in FNs 55 and 182 among others, compare author formatting on FNs 41 and 64, need page numbers for FNs 99-101, etc. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed all the above, except for ref 182 – Im not sure what you mean by stray punctuation mark. I looked over the citation a dozen times and all I notice is the double periods after the author name, which are caused by the template syntax. This also occurs on other featured articles including ref 84 on Columbia River. Are those supposed to exist or should I just remove the period after Lee W. ? Shannºn 06:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
request to comment on above question received no reply, Im assuming that said problems are considered fixed Shannºn 02:09, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Please note the overlinking I fixed. I'm surprised this is still going through FAC unnoticed.
  • "a population of over six hundred thousand"—personal pref for "more than". You might like it better too?
  • long-standing.
  • MOSDASH: "Kansas City, Missouri–Kansas City, Kansas,". And there are a few boundaries that need dashes, not hyphens.
  • "A fairly undeveloped reach"—more encyclopedic might bre "relatively", if such a word is necessary.
  • Yellowstone River pic: why 160px? It was tiny. I've boosted to 240px. Quite a few others would be improved by boosting (personal pref.).
  • Looks very well-written to me. Tony (talk) 15:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dashes fixed, wow, there were quite a few that I missed on the last run through. I also tweaked the words you mentioned above. Shannºn 02:24, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • tentative Support Comments WRT prose. I think we're mostly there - the prose looks good now. There might be a few redundant words here and there but no-deal-breakers are left. This is conditional on those who are more familiar with the river happy with factual weighting etc. so I'll keep and eye on the page- beginning a read-through now. I'll jot queries below...Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:13, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The Missouri's headwaters forks also extend significantly farther upstream... - grammar
It is unclear exactly how far beyond the Platte his expedition actually traveled up the Missouri. Bourgmont described the blond-haired Mandans in his journals, so it is likely that he reached as far as their villages in present-day North Dakota - the bit immediately preceding this segment tells us they're going along the Missouri River, in which case, the first sentence is largely redundant, and can be reworded " It is unclear exactly how far past this point they travelled, though Bourgmont described the blond-haired Mandans in his journals, so it is likely that he reached as far as their villages in present-day North Dakota"
In 1801, the Spanish restored the Americans the rights to use the Mississippi and New Orleans - "restored to the Americans"?

Looking promising though. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looked at the Notes and the bottom main-text section.

  • "which is just over one-half of the length of the Missouri."
  • "is maintained by various federal and state government agencies"—you could lose one word.
  • "all the land within the preserve is open to hiking and camping"—can "the" be removed? I'm not 100% sure, but I suspect it can.
  • "The river also flows through or past many National Historic Landmarks,"—lose "also" (note that two "alsos" do appear to be necessary in this section).
  • "Parts of the river itself are also designated for recreational or preservational use."—unsure "also" is doing anything useful. Nor here: "The preserve also includes a wide variety of"
  • Personal pref. only: you might consider "about" rather than the ungainly "approximately". Tony (talk) 12:02, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Made corrections to all the above (I hope). Shannºn 06:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by MONGO...not going to section off this, but want to add a few comments as this goes through review...I'll add comments as I can over the next few days to a week...

  • In Course section....end of second paragraph, "the Milk River enters from the left"...perhaps better if we say from the "north"...[2]...Maybe double check the direction tributary rivers and streams enter...via topoquest. Some confusion when we're talking about stream flow..I think it should all emphasize whether tributaries flow into the Missouri from the north, south, east or west, rather than left or right...again, Course section, third paragraph, last sentence: "While it continues south, eventually reaching Oahe Dam in South Dakota, the Grand, Moreau and Cheyenne Rivers all join the Missouri from the right"...the Missouri itself is flowing south, but what direction are these other rivers flowing into it from...
Sorry to butt in at this late date and only on this single issue, which caught my eye. Shannon had it right originally. The convention for course descriptions is to use left and right heading downstream rather than to attempt compass descriptions. It's probably helpful to link to Wiktionary's left and right on first use. Finetooth (talk) 18:58, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I know it's the convention... but IMO it actually works better, I think, for this article. I don't know why. Would you think changing them back is a good idea or leaving it as is? Shannºn 02:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't change them back on my account. Leave as is. My real concern was that someone might leap from this to changing the left-rights in all the course descriptions in the encyclopedia. Yow! Finetooth (talk) 04:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maps indicate the Gallatin flows into the Missouri only one mile after the Jefferson and Madison Rivers merge at Three Forks, Montana...U.S. Geological Survey map via Topoquest...the Madison is at lower left coming in from the west, the Jefferson is flowing in from the south and those two river merge right above the 4044 elevation point at lower left...and before the canyon, the Gallatin meets the Missouri as it flows from the south...[3]
  • First sentence in Course section..."From the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Wyoming, three streams rise to form the headwaters of the Missouri River."...this seems confusing...the three main rivers that all meet to form the Missouri are the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin...also, though it doesn't specify the mountains, this source says the headwaters are at 11,000 feet (3,400 m) [4]
    • A lot of the rivers tributaries originate above 11,000 feet... like the Middle Fork of the South Platte River which rises at something like 13,000 feet on Mt Democrat in Colorado. And some of the tributaries of the Wind/Bighorn rivers too, well above eleven thousand feet. Though Gallatin Lake is at around 9000 feet, and Madison Lake is well below at some 8,300 feet. Shannºn 06:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source lists Mount Jefferson (Bitterroot Range) as the headwater source for the river...[5]
    • I concur with Mongo on this and suggest that the source above that he cites along with the Montana river sources contained in the article be used to support the discussion of the source of the Missouri. The use of topo maps sources is problematic because usually (as is the case here) the actual content is an interpretation of what one editor thinks the topomap is illustrating. For example, the topo doesn't actually say that Bower spring is the source of the Missouri, that's an interpretation of the map data. Even seasoned editors on geographic articles like Mongo can make a mistake interpreting map data. (Being familar with the points of a compass it would be physically impossible short of the contruction of a huge aquaduct for the Madison to enter the Missouri headwaters from the West and the Jefferson from the South when the entire length of the Jefferson is west of the Madison) On the other hand, the source and sources within that Mongo cites, actually do discuss this in detail. Another point I'd like to make is that the three forks of the Missouri (regardless of which one is the farthest from the mouth) ought to be discussed with equal weight about their origin. ie. The Madison flows from Madison Lake on the Madison plateau in YNP, the Gallatin flows from Gallatin Lake in the Gallatin range in YNP and the Jefferson flows from the Centennials. Although the Gibbon is confluence source of the Madison, it is just another tributary. I think the most interesting fact about the headwaters of the Missouri is the the three forks actually form in many different ranges from the Beaverhead mountains to the West, East to the Gallatin Range.--Mike Cline (talk) 18:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm looking around for some books to cite on the orgination, but what is in the article seems accurate enough...though we may know more, we can only add what we can cite of course. Your feedback is very much appreciated.--MONGO 00:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Browers Spring is located on Mount Jefferson, so IMO it's either to mention the spring or the mountain, since its referring to roughly the same location. Though I'd say the spring is probably the more well-known of the two, and has traditionally been considered as the Missouri's source as far as I know... Shannºn 06:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Though not critical in itself, but we may want to mention that in addition to electrical generation from the dams, the Missouri River also has 3 nuclear power plants adjacent to it's course...I might write it as: Three nuclear power generating facilities are located adjacent to the Missouri River, including the Callaway Nuclear Generating Station in Missouri as well as the Cooper Nuclear Station and Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station, which are both in Nebraska.
  • Support and kudos to Shannon1 for sheparding this expansive article to this level.--MONGO 07:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I continue to support this article. It is better than it was at FAC3 when I supported. I continue to think that this article is being held to a higher standard than it should because the majority of the current FA rivers are really streams and creeks. Of the 10 current river FAs (Bull Run River (Oregon), Chetco River, Columbia River, Johnson Creek (Willamette River), Jordan River (Utah), Little Butte Creek (Rogue River), River Parrett, Rogue River (Oregon), St. Johns River, and Willamette River), 6 are steams and creeks less than 60 miles in length, while 9 are 310 miles or less. In addition, FA has 8 actual creeks less than 25 miles (Aliso Creek (Orange County), Balch Creek, Big Butte Creek, Fanno Creek, Larrys Creek, Plunketts Creek (Loyalsock Creek), Tryon Creek, White Deer Hole Creek). This article compares favorably to the Columbia (1243 miles).--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments technical things...

  • Are you sure all of those pre-collapsed tables are good per WP:COLLAPSE?
  • In the Major tributaries table, you have a blank cell for the purposes of having both a rowspan and sortability. There are examples of how to avoid this, see List of Afghanistan T20I cricketers for instance. I'm not keen at all on the current solution.
  • Is there a purpose for the coloured cells or is it simply for visual pleasure?
  • Row and col scopes (per MOS:DTT) should be used to enable screen-readers to make best use of these tables.
  • In the Dams table, what is the purpose of the odd cell being coloured?
  • When sorting this table, the "total" row moves too, this should be locked in place at the bottom (have a look at the code here relating to class="sortbottom").
  • Ref 72 needs a space after its pp.

The Rambling Man (talk) 13:59, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed all the tables as you suggested, it looks a lot cleaner now. Yes, the colored table cells are just for readability purposes because some readers might get lost in the wall of figures therein (like I sometimes do). I don't know if the tables should be collapsed or not. The reason I collapsed them was because they make the article look too cluttered if they werent. Shannºn 02:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: The article is well-researched and highly informative, with many excellent diagrams, tables and images to illustrate major points and concepts. I personally can't see what could now be done to improve the article in any significant way. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 10:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate notes -- I can see that Nikki has not withdrawn her long-standing oppose despite acknowledgement/actions in response to her comments, and a couple of pings from the nominator and Ucucha. On some of those issues raised:

  • Overlinking doesn't seem too bad anymore, though I wouldn't bother linking such things as en masse and canoe, for instance.
  • Re. citations, date formatting is looking consistent but no need to link organisations and publishers after first instance, e.g. Geographic Names Information System, U.S. Geological Survey, and there's still inconsistency with multiple authors, e.g. FNs 41 and 64 separate them with semi-colons (generally preferred in my experience) but FNs 65 and 66 use commas -- pls check throughout and be consistent.

Other points, for my part:

  • Make sure journal/newspaper names are italicised throughout, e.g. Sioux City Register.
  • Putting everything from First peoples to Dam-building era (inclusive) under a History section makes more sense to me from a structural perspective that having all those history sections at the same level as other distinct aspects such as Geology and Ecology.
  • I'm not one of those who is against See also sections in FAs per se but there's a fair few items here. Pls revisit and check that none are already linked in the main body and, better still, see if you can't in fact link a few in the main body instead; e.g. since you mention buffalo, I'd have thought you could link Great bison belt somewhere.
  • Pls provide a link/diff for a prior recent FAC spotcheck of sources for accuracy and avoidance of copyvio or close paraphrasing.

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:09, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have corrected all the aformentioned issues. However the most recent spotcheck I can find was from last year (in FAC2), and all the issues raised there were corrected during that FAC. Also, what you said about History makes sense, but I feel it's a little too much content for a single header. Many other articles on large rivers, e.g. Columbia River, also split up their history sections. Shannºn 02:35, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Re. the structural point, well, I've used precedent myself when responding to suggestions on my own FA noms in the past, so I can hardly fault you there...
As far as your last spotcheck goes, that's a fair while ago so we'd better have one for this nom -- will list at WT:FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
update -- Unfortunately I don't know how to remove the wikilinks to the USGS in the first three refs, because it's part of the Cite gnis template. Shannºn 02:38, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Mmm, perhaps a bit of over-engineering on the part of the template designers there but that's not your fault. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)s[reply]

Comment There are quite a few dead links. Also, there are still some citation formatting issues, particularly when using the same publisher or work many different times. Suggest looking through groups of citations from the same publisher/work and make sure they are formatted consistently. Some specifics:

  • Compare refs 139 and 140 with 143 and 145.
  • U.S. National Park Service vs. National Park Service
  • 182: Website publisher= needs capitalization

While the citations have improved a lot, the combination of dead links and formatting inconsistencies is worrisome. ClayClayClay 00:03, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed all the citations as you suggested; also I took care of the dead links. I will do a last run through of the citations tomorrow. Shannºn 07:23, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There's one instance of National Park Service left without U.S.;
You need to check all of the warnings on Checklinks, not just the red "Dead" rated references: the first one listed (#85) comes up as a 404 even though it only has a "Suspicious" rating, and I'm sure most in the "Suspicious" (orange) and probably some in the "Connection issue" (blue) category will be dead links as well. It would be great if you checked out the "Status" errors (green) and corrected those links also to avoid link rot in the future. ClayClayClay 09:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone through and corrected all the remaining ones. A lot of them were not dead, though. Anyways, I added archive linkes to the ones that are, etc. Shannºn 03:08, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, my previous concerns were fixed, thank you. I am looking through again:
  • All the USGS Gage references need ending dates (in lieu of "present"): some date to 2009 and some to 2010. See 17 (or 47, depending on the style you're going for) for suggestions on what they should look like, pick one style and use it for all of these refs.
  • 133 needs an access date
  • Are 176 and 179 the same reference? if not, which one is 178 referring to? (Dyer)
  • 194 vs 193 (archive placement & formatting)
The things I can pick at wrt referencing are starting to dwindle, I'm reasonably confident you'll stop hearing my random complaints soon :) (also, thanks for bearing with me, it's the first time I've meaningfully reviewed references in an article) ClayClayClay 15:25, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Finished. Good to hear this about the references. The referencing is always what's killed this article at prior FACs. Shannºn 21:05, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just one more this time: 148 and 150 point to the same website, but have different publisher info. Was one of the references lost? ClayClayClay 19:31, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. I have no idea how that happened, since I'm sure they were supposed to be the same citation :P Shannºn 23:52, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source spot-check
  • Ref 6(b), OK:
  • Article text: "With a drainage basin spanning 529,350 square miles ..."
  • Source text: "The Missouri River drains one-sixth of the United States and encompasses 529,350 square miles."
  • Ref 97, OK:
  • Article text: "However, his reputation was enhanced in 1720 when the Pawnee – who had earlier been befriended by Bourgmont – massacred the Spanish Villasur expedition near present-day Columbus, Nebraska on the Missouri River and temporarily ending Spanish encroachment on French Louisiana."
  • Source text: "The next morning, August 14, 1720, the [Pawnee] Indians attacked. In only minutes Villasur, L'Archeveque, Naranjo, 3l soldiers, 11 Pueblo Indians, and the priest lay dead"; "Villasur's defeat ended Spanish exploration of the Nebraska country"
  • Ref 131, fails verification:
  • Article text: "The Department of the Missouri, which was headquartered on the banks of the river at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, was the military command center for the Indian Wars in the region."
  • Source text: Mentions Department of the Missouri prominently, but I can't divine whether that means it was the "military command center". Perhaps the nominator can indicate how they deduced this.
  • Ref 151, fails verification.
  • Article text: "Flooding damages on the Mississippi–Missouri river system were one of the primary reasons for which Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1944, opening the way for the USACE to develop the Missouri on a massive scale."
  • Source text: Is a general description of the Flood Control Act of 1944, but contains no text about the Missouri or the Mississippi–Missouri river system, nor does it contain any text about flooding damage of any kind. --Laser brain (talk) 01:48, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above has been corrected. What about the rest of the article? I have no problem responding to further spot checking as quickly as possible. Shannºn 02:05, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further spot-checks
  • Ref 191(c), OK:
  • Article text: "Visitation has increased from 10 million visitor-hours in the mid-1960s to over 60 million visitor-hours in 1990."
  • Source text: "In 1954, there were approximately four million visitor hours on the main-stem reservoirs. Ten years later, with the closure of the last reservoir, that number had increased to over 10 million. By the late 1990s, the number of hours spent recreating on the Missouri River reservoirs peaked at over 60 million visitor hours."
  • Ref 198, fails verification:
  • Article text: "Plant life is more diverse in the Middle Missouri but it does not have many species of fish."
  • Source text: Does not mention plant life in the Middle Missouri; in fact, the source is about the Upper Missouri. The source does mention fish species of the Middle Missouri, but only to say that the Upper Missouri has roughly half the species diversity of the Middle Missouri.
I'm sorry, but I keep finding problems. The referencing does not appear to have been done carefully. Please find an independent editor to cast a wider net—in my opinion all of the sources will need to be checked and fixed before this could become a featured article. --Laser brain (talk) 16:20, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of 198, I found that that was actually a misinterpretation of the reference content which I have corrected in the article. As per your suggestion, where can I place a request for this article to be spotchecked? Shannºn 01:19, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
On second thought, I believe that you may have just unfortunately hit a lot of problematic citations. I went through and checked eleven random citations (3, 17, 33, 54, 95, 109, 134, 168, 199, 215, 220). Only two of them (95, 168) had problems. I think the referencing issue in this article might not be quite as bad as you make it out to be. Shannºn 04:19, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Be that as it may, the nom has been open for 2 months and there are still concerns with referencing that I can't see being fully assuaged in the near future. I realise this is a letdown after the support received for prose, images and so on, but we really need to archive this and allow you, preferably with another editor per Laser brain's advice, to go through the entire article to check the accuracy of the refs. When that's done, a peer review (which, remember, FAC is not) might also be in order. Once all that's complete, including the usual two-week breathing space between FAC noms, pls try again as clearly the other FAC criteria are looking solid. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:26, 16 March 2012 (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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