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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Marskell 22:48, 21 September 2009 [1].

Geology of the Grand Canyon area

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Notified: User talk:Mav[2]

Four years ago this was one of the best articles at Wikipedia. It could use some help to keep up with current FA standards. Has had only 10 edits in the last four months, so nominating here in the hope of gaining more attention and assistance.

Specific criteria:

  • 1.a Prose: rough in places, could use substantial copyediting. For example, "Some important terms: A geologic formation is a rock unit that has one or more sediment beds, and a member is a minor unit in a formation." The article is list-heavy and contains single sentence paragraphs.
  • 1.c Well-researched: the list of nine sources seems thin by 2009 standards.
  • 2.c Consistent citations: Contains only 17 inline citations, multiple paragraphs and sections entirely uncited. The article would be more useful for student/research purposes if it were clear which facts are substantiated in particular sources.

Overall, a very good and encyclopedic article that would probably be rated B-class if it had been written today, mostly based upon its prose and referencing. Would love to see this retained. But needs a boost, because if we're honest it wouldn't pass GA today in its present form. Durova288 04:13, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'll give it a good copyedit/MOS/ref pass and flesh out the listy parts with a couple new book references I've obtained since this article became FA. But I must disagree that 9 sources is at all thin when several of those sources are books that cover the subject in chapter length (I'm not a fan of constructing an article from tiny bits from dozens of sources when good sources that have a more substantial treatment exist). Either way, the two new book sources I'll be using are soley on the geology of the Grand Canyon so should make up any deficit. However, this may take some time due to having to condense and sort through all that new detail to see what is appropriate for an encyclopedia article. I had hoped to be well on the way of such an update before a FAR (the plan was to flesh out related formation articles and update this article as a side benefit ; must do things backwards now). --mav (talk) 02:25, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Plan to start above work this past weekend were scuttled. Will try again this weekend. --mav (talk) 04:20, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Apologies if the comment about nine sources was out of place; not my field. It just seemed that this wouldn't be a tough subject to find more sources about. Quality matters more than quantity, though. Durova294 04:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • While there are plenty of field guides to the Grand Canyon, there are relatively few good sources that cover the geology in any detail. No reason to apologize. :) --mav (talk) 21:35, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ref pass for Harris 1997 complete. Kiver will be next. Once the article is fully referenced, I'll start the de-listify expansion and copyedit. --mav (talk) 21:35, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ref pass for Kiver 1999 complete. 31 individual inline cites now, many of which are used multi times. Starting expansion and reference work with Price 1999. --mav (talk) 19:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Still working on Price 1999. Almost done. Normally have only a few hours on the weekend to work on this but will try to work during the week to expedite completion. --mav (talk) 03:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No need to panic YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Done with Price 1999. Now 48 individual inline cites with many of those referenced multiple times. Starting work on Beus & Morales 2003, which is the 400+ page book just on Grand Canyon geology I was talking about. --mav (talk) 00:50, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I went ahead and delistified the lists and added alt text. Article still has some uncited stuff and areas that could use a little expansion. Still working. --mav (talk) 02:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your work YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:22, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The alt text is a very good start; thanks. It has a few problems:
  • File:Red Butte, Arizona 2004-10-19.jpg is still missing alt text.
  • Some phrases cannot be verified by a non-expert just from the image, and need to be moved to the caption or removed as per WP:ALT#Verifiability. These include "the Grand Canyon from Navajo point", "in the Grand Canyon", "actual sample rocks from each layer", "the Colorado River as seen from Desert View on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon", "Vulcan's Throne basalt", "the Grand Canyon", "Glen Canyon Dam"
  • Some of the phrases in the alt text are not that useful and can be removed as per WP:ALT#Phrases to avoid: "Picture of", "showing", "Photo of", "Image showing", "A black and white photograph of".
  • The phrase "Different layers are noted and referred to in the text" is pretty strange. It partly duplicates the caption, but partly disagrees with it, as the caption talks about "Black numbers" but I see no black numbers in that image. I suspect that both caption and alt text need to be reworded; please keep WP:ALT#Repetition in mind.
  • The alt text for File:Colorado Plateaus map2.jpg doesn't really convey the gist of the image, which is that the Colorado Plateau boundaries circle the Four Corners region and is mostly in Utah and northern Arizona. Something like that should be in the alt text; please see WP:ALT#Maps.
  • "A bride is seen near the dam"? "Bridge" not "bride" (honestly, at first I started looking for a tiny figure in a wedding dress!). Please remove the redundant word "seen". Also, it'd help to say briefly where the bridge is, in relation to the dam.
Eubulides (talk) 05:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Although I'm no expert with alt text, will have a look at the captions and see whether they can be improved. Durova306 05:45, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another big push to fix remaining issues this weekend. --mav (talk) 00:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Somehow forgot about Chronic 2004. So went through that text to improve and expand the article a bit. Beus (the big book) is next and will take care of the remaining uncited thickness and age parts. Other than that all I think is needed is a good copyedit and the alt text/cite format fix. More work to come tomorrow and/or Monday. --mav (talk) 00:08, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If there are any remaining image issues please let me know. Also to Mav: the Library of Congress hosts historic photography that might possibly be suitable for this article and also featured picture-worthy. If you'd like to select a suitable image for an FP drive, please leave word. I'll handle the image editing; need input from an eye that's experienced with the geology. Durova311 01:52, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The images still have the alt text problems noted in my 05:08, 31 August comment above. Eubulides (talk) 02:19, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Another stab at the alt text done. Other images added as well. Please take a look. Still working on Beus 2003. --mav (talk) 03:51, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for doing all that. It's much improved. I fixed some of the obvious typos and have a few more comments.
  • "An exhibit that shows different rock layers" doesn't convey the essence of the image, which is that there are six major layers, that layers are numbered from bottom (oldest) to top (newest), that layers 1 and 2 are diagonal, 2 not visible on the surface of the canyon's sides, 3 and 4 are fairly vertical, 5 fairly horizontal, and 6 fairly vertical again. Something like that, anyway.
  • "An exhibit of actual sample rocks from each geological layer." still doesn't say much about what that image looks like. Perhaps the edit made to the caption was intended for the alt text?
  • Misspellings: "pebblely", "slopping".
  • "Annotated photo of different colored rock units on a cliff". That alt text looks like it should be the caption. Are the alt text and caption interchanged here?
  • "Indentations in tan-colored rock" The alt text should focus on what those indentations look like (roundish footprints with claw or toe marks), not on the color of the rock.
  • "... on each side. Seen downriver. An arching steel bridge ..." Sorry, I can't parse that.
  • There is still minor instances of "showing", "seen", "photo of" that should be removed.
Eubulides (talk) 06:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the pointer Durova. I looked but really could not find any color photos that show individual formations well. But the LOC certainly is a good source for the other Grand Canyon articles. I ended up adding low resolution PD images from the USGS and NPS. Will need to do some hiking to get better photos. --mav (talk) 03:51, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Only one more section to go for Beus 2003. Then a final copyedit and alt text pass will be needed. After that, I think we will be ready for a final look and (hopefully) closing this w/o going to FARC. --mav (talk) 03:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done?

Copyedit done, all ref passes done, expansion done, alt text done. I'm happy with the article now. Anything else need improvement? --mav (talk) 03:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fully meets my concerns. Thank you very much for all your effort. And Mav, in return for your excellent work and good spirits I'll extend a standing offer: if you locate a historic public domain image which you think would be suitable for this article, let me know and I'll do my best to restore it. Ideally I like to work with high resolution files (10MB or larger in TIFF or other uncompressed format), but if the best you locate is smaller I'll give that a shot too. Best regards, Durova320 03:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The alt text is all 1st-class now. Thanks for doing all that work. Eubulides (talk) 04:42, 21 September 2009 (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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