Wikipedia:Peer review/August 2020 Midwest derecho/archive1

August 2020 Midwest derecho

I've done the best I can to make this a high-quality article about this recently severe-weather event. However I would like the assistance of more experienced editors in the field to help make this article B or GA quality.

Thanks, Gwen Hope (talk) (contrib) 13:52, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

It's been sitting here for the longest time ... I'll print it out, do a copyedit, and then take a look and tell you what I think. Daniel Case (talk) 18:49, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: I appreciate this. I just made a few updates and improvements today. Sorry if you have to reprint it at all. Gwen Hope (talk) (contrib) 21:24, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@Gwenhope: I don't think that will be necessary ... I certainly hope not, as it amounted to 46 pages altogether. Lotta dead tree there. Daniel Case (talk) 23:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: Gosh all the edits you've made. Thank you so much! It's very helpful! Gwen Hope (talk) (contrib) 05:29, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, it amounted to about 2.7K or so gone from the article ... when the copy edit takes more than 1K out, it usually means to me that there was some fat in the writing (and there was, as the edit summaries—sometimes, I admit, with a little snark—make clear).

OK, now about the article generally ...

You've said you want to take it to GA, and I think you've got the material for that. But there are some things you might want to think about addressing first (basically, what I would have flagged if I were reviewing this as a GAN):

• I may take a stab soon at rewriting the lede: "The August 2020 Midwest derecho was a severe weather event which took place from August 10–11, 2020 ..." it currently reads, somewhat awkwardly and redundantly. MOS:AVOIDBOLD says: "If the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the opening sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it. Instead, simply describe the subject in normal English, avoiding redundancy." I think this is applicable here; note that the example given there is likewise about a natural disaster in the same area of the country.

• The broadest issue with the article as it is now is, to me, that it would be more accurately titled "August 2020 Midwest derecho in Iowa". I know, I know, it does discuss some of the other affected states. And it also does make clear that Iowa suffered the worst effects all told. But while we learn a great deal about how individual cities in the Hawkeye State did or didn't respond, and what the state's politicians did, we read almost nothing, comparatively, about what did or didn't happen in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. Were crops damaged there, too? Did politicians request disaster declarations and aid? How long did it take Grand Rapids to clean up its streets?

  And what happened in Ontario for that matter? The intro promises this, but the article delivers nothing. We don't even see that end of the radar trace maps. Did the provincial and Canadian federal governments do anything?

  It might be better, really, to make this a master article and do separate articles for the impact on each state, as we often do for tropical storms (I had a lot to do with Effects of Hurricane Irene in New York, one of my personal experiences of having a major natural disaster hit around me. On the other hand, the other extreme-weather article I've done the most for, 2011 Halloween nor'easter, manages to address the impact in all states and Canada without a need for separate articles. But I think you're going in the former direction).

• Is it necessary for that standalone sentence at the end of the intro explaining when high wind warnings are issued? (Really, that bit of weather geekery can go in the lead graf, with the explanation reduced to a note). This is symptomatic of what often happens with this sort of article when the disaster affects a wide area where people have Internet access and either already edit Wikipedia, or more often decide to take their first stab at doing so because of a sudden abundance of free time—people just add stuff that's relevant but in a sort of random way, or stuff that seems like it might be relevant but actually isn't when you really look at it, and as a result the article becomes a giant pot-luck supper rather than the elaborate seven-course master-chef meal we strive for all our articles to be. I tried to address some of this in my copy edit, and I think I succeeded mostly, but there may be reasons some of these things are important that are not obvious to an editor like me, who has never lived in Iowa, much less been there, and so I leave it to those with more local knowledge to sort things out. At any rate if the article is to go to GAN, it needs to read as if it were written with a consistent voice. Well, in this case that battle is largely won after the copy edit, but it still could benefit from a firmer hand at the organization.

• It also occurs to me that the article could further be shortened, and made more readable, by spinning off the list of tornadoes into a separate article, like, say, List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of May 22–31, 2008, which also has a main article about the outbreak generally.

• I think you would also be better with this as the article's lead image. The sunset in the background and greater use of cornstalk framing accentuates the devastation portrayed.

OK, that's what occurs to me now. Happy editing! Daniel Case (talk) 06:09, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: I heavily appreciate what you've contributed in both edits and advice. Regarding what you've brought up, let's take it point by point.

• First Lead Sentence - Agree - You already rewrote it and it's better. More succinct. More MOS-adherent.
• Article Name -  Disagree - There's a couple reasons why I don't think this a good idea. (1) Most of the tornadoes spawned in Illinois, with some in Wisconsin and Indiana as well. To limit the scope of the article to just Iowa would greatly ignore the distance the derecho traveled across the Midwest and the damage/wind records of the other states. (2) Official sources such as the NWS specifically describe the event in multi-state terms. In fact, five NWS field offices (Des Moines, Quad Cities, Chicago, Milwaukee/Northern Illinois, and Northern Indiana), have event reports about this event. Our scientific understanding combines their data and evaluation. (3) I live in Iowa, so my news and feeds are biased towards that. Perhaps we should just go digging for other areas? What you've touched on calls for expansion, not moving, it seems.
• Standalone High Wind Warning Info - Agree - You've already removed it. Admittedly it is superfluous now that your brought it up.
• Shortening/Splitting Article Info Section -  Possibly - I could see the List of tornadoes associated with the August 2020 Midwest derecho and moving the NWS info to List of National Weather Service warnings and discussions regarding the August 2020 Midwest derecho. That is definitely a possibility. We should keep the tornado chart. We should also consult the editors who primarily work on the tornado section, such as User:Chess Eric about this and get their opinion.
• Infobox Image -  Works for me - We can swap the images. The one currently in the infobox is there because the taller, narrower picture was better for the DYK I put together and got approved for the page a few months ago. I don't mind the swap.

So that's what I think. Gwen Hope (talk) (contrib) 07:47, 6 December 2020 (UTC)