Wikipedia:Peer review/Campus of University of the Philippines Los Baños/archive1

Campus of University of the Philippines Los Baños

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I am interested in helping it become a featured article. I am very well aware of the 14-day clause, and it's only about 12 days since I've withdrawn the article from WP:FAC. However, as with all rules, I don't think this is set in stone. (Correct me if I'm wrong). Previous FAC have noted stylistic/prose problems. Not really my expertise. I have mostly addressed technical problems in the FAC. I've submitted it to the Guild of Copy Editors, and User:Diannaa have done the copy-editing. I am submitting this two days early because I don't really expect much major editing work to happen in the next two days. In short, to save time. I wish you'd consider on this one.

Thanks, Moray An Par (talk) 03:22, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: Commendable GA-standard work, but more needs to be done if the article is to reach FA. Here are some specific points for attention.

Lead

• What is the basis of conversion to US$ that you are using? Ref 4 is uninformative.
• As we are now nearly halfway through 2011, I would expect to find more up-to-date statistics than the 2008 enrollment figures and "As of 2007..."

History

• General: The feel of this section seems somewhat towards the promotional rather than to the required neutral/encyclopedic tone. there is also over-detailing; e.g the number of lampposts
• The first sentence needs some punctuation, minimally a comma after "Mount Makiling". Personally I would favour a reconstruction, along the lines: "The campus was established in 1909 on 72.63 ha (179.5 acres) of abandoned farmland at the foot of Mount Makiling, purchased by the University of the Philippines (UP) Board of Regents to serve as the campus of the newly-created UP College of Agriculture (UPCA)". This highlights the original year, and does away with "initially".
• Acts don't of themeseves appropriate, they authorize appropriation by others.
• Did the acquisitions of 940 acres and 646.8 acres mean three different campuses, or were they all adjoining?
• Give dates for the Japanese occupation
• "during this period" - be more precise.
• "(believed to the "largest and best equipped in the eastern hemisphere" at the time it was constructed)"; Who "believed" this? The citation is to the institution's own website.

Upper campus

• Try to avoid repetition such as: "...the upper campus. The upper campus..."
• "MFR" acronym introduced without previous explanation. There is a tendency towards overuse of acronyms; later in this section we have "NAPOCOR" with a link to another article to find out what this is.
• "via Republic Act 6967" is too telegraphic. Perhaps "under the terms of..."?
• "Del De Guzman of the 2nd district of Makati filed HB 1143.." Please expand on this (presumably) legal or parliamentary process. Also, you need to follow through. The bill was opposed by UPLB; did it pass? Is it still pending after 3 years?

Land grants

• Can you include a sentence that explains who makes these grants? Is it the government?
• "Numerous parties have expressed interest in developing the land grants" - developing for what purposes? Housing, commercial, agricutural, recreational etc?

Buildings and landmarks

• You should drop the bullet-point format and reconstruct the section in straight prose. Also, per MOS, bolding should not be used for emphasis in the text.
• "National Artist for Architecture Leandro Locsin..." is an ugly formulation. Try "designed by Leandro Locisin, a National Artist for Architecture known for his..." etc.
• "Carillon" could use a wikilink

Transportation and amenities

• The Tagalog explanation should cover both the right and left terms
• Mixture of tenses, present, past and future: "As this part of the campus is the destination of many passengers, jeepney drivers estimated the change would result in a loss of ₱200–300 (US$5–7)..." Standardize.
• "A walkout was staged by around 500 students, with students citing the lack of community consultation..." The "students, with students..." phrasing is awkward.
• THe change of topic in the second paragraph needs to be signalled by more than a wikilink on "congregations".
• The "among others" at the end of the penultimate sentence is clumsy and needs to be dropped.

References

• I have not checked these out individually, but glancing through, it looks as though a high proportion of these are to sources published by or connected to the university. This could lead to questions about the neutrality of the article.

I hope these points are helpful. As I am unable to watch individual peer reviews, please contact me via my talkpage if you want to raise any issues from this review or if you would like me to take another look.. Brianboulton (talk) 18:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I used Yahoo! Finance for the conversion. WP:CURRENCY says

Conversions of less familiar currencies may be provided in terms of more familiar currencies, such as the US dollar, euro or pound sterling. Conversions should be in parentheses after the original currency, rounding to avoid excess or false precision (one or two significant digits are usually enough, as the exchange rates can vary significantly) and noting the conversion as approximate, with at least the year given as a rough point of conversion rate reference; e.g., Since 2001 the grant has been 10,000,000 Swedish kronor (approx. US$1.4M, €1.0M, or £800k as of August 2009), not (US$1,390,570, €971,673 or £848,646).

But since the article presents many monetary values, and thus would need many (approx #### as of month year), I made it as a footnote.

As for the "most advanced in the eastern hemisphere" claim, I'll reword it. I can't seem to find any info on it aside from university sources.

I'll start addressing those concerns, and post here when I'm done. Moray An Par (talk) 05:51, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The lands that UPLB got by Act 2730 adjoin the original campus. Moray An Par (talk) 06:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

MFR was defined in the lead. Moray An Par (talk) 06:07, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for help. I striked out those I think I've addressed. Carillon link? I don't think it's appropriate since its a proper name. How do I signal change of topic in another way? Sorry I'm no expert in English. MOS:BOLD says its allowable for definition lists. Regardless, I'll convert it to prose. I'll also do more research on Rep. Del's bill and its aftermath. Moray An Par (talk) 06:23, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

It's now in prose. Moray An Par (talk) 10:58, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Additional comments The article has been considerably improved since ny last reading. A few points still need some attention:-

• You must specify your source in the currency conversion footnote
• We still seem stuck with out of date enrolment and library figures.
• There still seems to be rather a lot of unexplained initials, e.g. in "The University Library is a periodic recipient of publications from the United Nations agencies (namely the UNFAO, UN-HABITAT, and UNU)..."
• Redlinks such as PhilHealth are useless; they don't tell us what this body is, and it is not explained elsewhere in the article.
• Some reference formatting needs further attention, e.g. Ref 12 - check for others.

I'm sorry that my time has been limited. Overall this looks an informative article. Brianboulton (talk) 18:42, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

• I'll try searching for the figures. They are kind of hard since UPLB doesn't periodically release them.
• Don't these initials stand for themselves? Like US? They really have very long names that's why I didn't expand them.
• I expect that an article will be created later on. PhilHealth is a government health care agency so it's a notable topic. Same case for other redlinks.
• I'll fix them. Moray An Par (talk) 02:45, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Ref 12 fixed. No other problems found. Unfortunately, the Commission on Audit is still not releasing its audit report for State Universities and Colleges for fiscal year 2010. As for the library data, no luck. Moray An Par (talk) 03:08, 12 June 2011 (UTC)