Wikipedia:Peer review/Darrington, Washington/archive1

Darrington, Washington

I am hoping to take this article about a small mountain town to FAC, but I would like some extra eyes on it. It's only been a year since its GA review. SounderBruce 23:42, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, it's been here for over a month and a half, and I just listed one for PR myself. So I'm going to print it out and take a look. I'll be back in a few days with comments, after doing a light copyedit. Daniel Case (talk) 05:29, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Alright, I meant to get back with this sooner after doing my copyedit, which seems to have been appreciated and generally necessary (while the article grew in a couple of places, organically I think I cut more than 1K, which is usually a sign that there was some fat in the article (in this case, a lot more relative pronouns than were really necessary).

It's great, however, to see someone having done this much on an article about a truly small American town, far smaller than the one I live in. And it's also a pleasure to read something generally this consistently written (it looks like you took charge of that; I review entirely too many GA noms where it's too obvious that two or three different people have worked on the article at different times and the differences need to be smoothed over a bit). Did this come out of having been there yourself a few times (as it would seem from the photos?)

So, regarding your initial message, as one who's clearly been to the rodeos of which you write, and familiar with those processes myself although not to that extent, my verdict is: It's definitely still a GA, although if I were reviewing it there I would have put it on hold even after the copyedit so you could make some of the updates I mention below.

However, it is not yet featurable. I have some ideas as to what we can do, and I'd be willing to put in a bit of work myself, as discussed below.

Specifics:

• I think the intro could stand to be expanded and restructured a bit as it doesn't really reflect the article as is ... it spends two grafs summarizing the town's history, then tries to hurry things up and tell us briefly about modern Darrington, with that sentence about the town's elevation added rather awkwardly to the last graf.

  Once the updates and additions I think should be made have been made, I'd be happy to do that as I've done for so many other articles ... let me know.

• I'm curious about the town's wet/dry battle.

  About when did the residents start resisting the county's efforts to go dry? Do we know? It seems that this happened at some point in the first decade of the 20th century. Perhaps histories of Snohomish County can tell us more, and we could include that and cite them/it.

  Also, why? Beyond the obvious reasons that they liked a good drink every now and then. Were the saloons a big part of the economy for the loggers and what miners were left? Again, do we know?

  What was the effect of the town's vote after the county voted to go dry? Was it able to stay wet? It does not seem like it was.

  And what was the ultimate resolution of the issue? I'm going to presume that the county stayed dry into Prohibition ... but how did things go after Repeall? Did Washington change its liquor law to pre-empt any county or municipal decision to go dry?

  The article raises these questions with this one graf, but then drops them completely.

• It should be mentioned that the airport is actually almost completely outside the town's municipal limits ... I assume the town owns the land (and this raises some questions for me as well, like what role the county plays, if any, in the airport's administration? Does the town have any ordinances on its books relating to the airport even though the airport is technically outside its jurisdiction? If so, how does the county take this? But these questions are better off answered in the article about the airport).

  Also, do we know why the town decided to build its own general-aviation airport? I know, I know, the most obvious answer is that they're way the hell out in the mountains with one road going in and out, and no passenger rail service, so there might as well be some other way to get here if a landslide blocks Route 530 off (as did happen later). But it would be nice to be able to do more than speculate.

• Has the rail trail ever been finished? It's been 30 years since then and it appears from Google Maps that it has been. It would be nice for the article to confirm this.

• Likewise, it's been four years since the state, the county and WSU put the economic recovery plan together after the mudslide. Has any of that $65 million been spent? If so, how? Has it been effective? There's probably some local news coverage of this we could find online.

• In the geography section, we should probably describe the town's borders (based on the USGS map) and the land use within (can usually be sourced to satellite view, and Google Street View is immensely helpful). This is where we could put the elevation (and the town's highest and lowest, the former of which I have determined to be the hill in its southwest corner with the two houses on it.

  I have done this in many other articles and I could easily do it here.

I have to go eat now; more later. Daniel Case (talk) 21:45, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

OK ... picking things back up again:

• At this point do we really need the 2000 census data? That was 20 years ago and very soon, even all things considered, we will have 2020 data (I would wait to have that before you nominate for FA). By then the only relevance the previous two 21st-century censuses will have to the town's current demographics is in the form of long-term trends (like, comparing 2000 and 2010 it seems the town, while still overwhelmingly white, is getting a little less so).

  Also, the 2000 census section has economic data, yet that's strangely absent from the 2010 section ... again, this can be remedied most effectively by waiting for 2020 data to be compiled and released.

• The economy section could also mention that outside of the gas stations, there aren't any (as far as I can tell) national food or retail chains in Darrington (perhaps because of its general remoteness?)

• I had to update the section on the town's representation in the state legislature since it was seriously out of date.

  This brings up the possibility of expanding the "politics" aspect of the politics and government section. It is noted that town, unsurprisingly I think, went for Trump by a wide margin last time around even as Snohomish County as a whole remained steadfastly Democratic.

  We can probably establish that the town's Republican leanings go way beyond just the last presidential election. Snomhomish County's Election Office has a detailed page of past election results; among them are detailed precinct-by-precinct breakdowns for every election going back over a century, such as this. Since Darrington is a single precinct, it should be very easy to find out in how many other recent elections Darrington voted for the Republican candidate and by how much.

  Yes, I volunteer to do this if asked.

  Also, since the article doesn't mention that they are, I presume the town's elections for mayor and council are nonpartisan. Am I correct? If not, can we say something about those (It does not appear from last year's election results, linked above, that any of those positions were contested; maybe we should mention that too?)

• Something felt like it was missing from the article compared to other articles on small towns we have. It took until I was done to go back over it and realize ... it would seem from the article that, in Darrington, to quote another famous Washingtonian, "Sunday morning / Is every day for all I care". In other words, you'd never get the idea that there are any churches in town. Yet looking on Google Maps I count icons for three; I'm sure that, as always, there are in actuality more.

  In short, we need a religion section, preferably between the politics and culture sections as they are often located, and hopefully illustrated with a photo of the churchiest-looking church in town. The church's websites (or Facebook pages even, if they don't have websites) would be a good starting point for research. But we also should try to see if the census, or anyone else, has some data on what religion (or, most likely, what Protestant sect) Darringtonians identify as.

• Under media, maybe we could add what local TV stations (and the networks they're affiliated with) are receivable in Darrington, or at least included in cable/OTT packages. I'd assume they'd mostly be from Seattle, but maybe there's some from Bellingham or maybe even Vancouver as well? And what radio stations come in? Who provides cable service? Do we have any stats on Internet connectivity?

• First, under parks and recreation, as nice as it is I don't think we have to settle for that nearly 30-year-old HABS photo of the ranger station (about which more later). It looks like it would be very easy to take a current, color photo as it's right off Route 530.

  Second, we seem to have limited recreation to a discussion of the town parks and the opportunities available in the nearby national forest. But what about fishing? I look at the Sauk meandering past all its gravel bars on the satellite photo just east of Darrington, and I catch myself wanting to get waders on and float some flies in those waters.

  Surely we can have something about this wonderful recreational resource, a National Wild and Scenic River, just outside of town? Is there access to the river from the town, like a parking lot or something? Is it as popular a fishing stretch as it looks? Are there bait/fly shops in town that cater to visiting anglers?

  When you talk about tourism being a larger and larger part of the local economy, things like this loom large in the mind of a reader if the article doesn't say anything about them. I'm sure we can find plenty of angler's guidebooks to Washington that can speak to this. Or maybe the state/federal governments have something.

• I don't know if the historic preservation section should really mention anything other than the ranger station, as all the fire lookouts are some distance from town, despite their given location (It should really be "Darrington vicinity", and boy does Darrington have a lot of vicinity). The ranger station itself is in town, though, and since the [National Register of Historic Places listings in Snohomish County, Washington|Snohomish County NRHP list]] shows it as redlinked, maybe once we get a new picture we can start an article about it (I should see if the National Archives has the application, which might also give us some other interesting general information about the town). Again, I could do that too.

  Also, is anything in Darrington listed on the state or any local heritage register? Has the town ever designated anything a landmark that no one else has? We should try to find out.

• For the infrastructure section we should have a photo of Route 530 where it changes direction at the Shell station in the north end of town, rather a generic one of a stretch just outside of town.

OK, that's it. I wonder also if we might be able to get some sources/photos by contacting any local historical societies or the like ... maybe they have archives? Or they know who does? I wonder if any of those old local daily newspapers could shed some light on my questions above.

Happy editing! Daniel Case (talk) 06:12, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh ... one more thing I'd forgotten to mention:

• The state audit report used as a source for the town's finances dates to the 2016 fiscal year. It's been four years ... certainly something more recent should be available that we can use.

  Also, when we talk about the town's finances, we should discuss (and perhaps the audit report goes into this detail) what its sources of revenue are. I assume most of it is local property taxation (and does the school district also levy that?) but I can't imagine that's all of it. Washington famously has no personal income tax, although it does have a business and occupation tax, with a pretty steep state sales tax to make up for it. Are municipal and county governments allowed to levy these? (Probably not, I'd bet). Are there any funds from the state or county governments made available to Darrington, and are they under any spending constraints? Daniel Case (talk) 18:21, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

  • @Daniel Case: Thanks for the review and copyedits! I'll get around to answering your questions and looking over the changes in the coming days, but for now I can answer the audit question: the state auditor does have newer reports for the town, but the general situation does not change drastically from year to year. At last check it seems to have a budget of $2.7 to $4.7 million (but with the COVID crisis, 2020 will look different). SounderBruce 04:45, 12 July 2020 (UTC)