Wikipedia:Peer review/Missouri River/archive1

Missouri River

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I am planning on sending it to FA status. I've had experience with failing a lot of FACs, and I'd like to have some comments on this article, which I have spent a whole lot of time and research on, in lieu of failing another FAC (which would be embarrassing). I'd like some words on how to expand the page, as it doesn't seem to do the river justice.

Thanks, Shannon^talk _contribs 04:02, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: , here are some suggestions for improvement.

Lead

• In the first sentence I would say “Missouri River”, not just “Missouri”. Also not sure the second “is” is needed.

 Done

• Seems like it should have a more exact length than just over 2,300 miles – I would use the Geobox length. Ditto for the watershed area, though there I guess the nearly is maybe OK.

 Done

• In the Geobox I don't think the same ref needs to be repeated three times for the native names - once is enough (since they are all the same ref)
• Per the MOS, numbers less than 10 are spelled out, so spell out nine US states (this is done for two Canadian provinces)
• "have" here makes it sound like the Paleo-Indians are still there, so I would remove it: Paleo-Indians have inhabited the plains surrounding the Missouri River for at least 12,000 years.[7]

 Done

• I would add at the end of this sentence that the river is named for the last tribe Prominent Native American tribes that lived on the river prior to the arrival of Europeans included the Mandan, Sioux, Hidatsa, Osage, and Missouri.

 Done

• Some might see "famed" as POV, and the famed part is not repeated in the body of the article, which might make it better. When France ceded Louisiana to the United States, the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled the river in search of a water route to the Pacific coast...

 Done

• The first three sentneces of the third paragraph use the word today, which is a bit much. I also am not sure channelization has to be in there twice - if it is in twice, why not have the sentences back to back?

 Done

• I would tweak this - remove strike, [and addition] Although it once was the undeniable longest river of North America, today its length is comparable with the Mississippi River because of channelization of its waters to [remove meanders and] facilitate boat travel.

 Done

Course

• First sentence - I am not sure if "Rockies" is clear enough. Would it be better to say Rocky Mountains? Also Three Forks is officially a city (not a town).
• Needs to say when the river enters South Dakota
• Is this correct? then after it receives the James River, forms the Iowa-South Dakota boundary - seems like it is the Iowa-Nebraska boundary (or that border should be mentioned too)
• The whole section has several places where it could be tightened by a few words - could along the west side of the Big Belt Mountains. just be "west of the Big Belt Mountains." or remove the word "from" from It exits from the mountains near Cascade, ... or does Garrison Dam need to mentioned twice? or simplify Bismarck to just the city of Bismarck, North Dakota's capital, where it receives ...
• I am not sure what the second reservoir means in The Missouri then meanders east past Williston and into Lake Sakakawea, a second reservoir formed by the Garrison Dam. I think it means the seond reservoir in the course so far, but it sounds like it is the second one formed by this dam.
• Given the number of times Hermann, Missouri is mentioned for discharge, I would also mention it in the Course section, and give a rough distance from it to the mouth (until I looked at a map, I assumed it was closer to the mouth than it is).

Misc

• I will try and add more later. Here are three more quick comments. Per WP:HEAD the section headers should not repeat the article's name, so "Missouri River dams" could just be "Dams".
• Provide context for the reader by giving the year Joliet and Marquette first saw it. ALso need metric units for 60 miles.
• There are three images of the mouth, and I am not sure that the image File:Miss R dam 27.jpg actually shows the Missouri (image description is all Mississippi)
• There are several citation needed tags that need to be cleaned up. Also saw at least one question mark for page number in a ref that needs to be fixed.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:38, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Watershed

• MOS says to generally spell out percent
• Watch WP:OVERLINKing - for example Arkansas River is linked twice in this section, for example
• Awkward sentence The Missouri River, compared with the Mississippi above their confluence, is actually much longer and drains a greater area. perhaps something like "When the Missouri River is compared with the Mississippi above their confluence, the Missouri is much longer and drains a greater area." Perhaps if the lengths could be given too?
• Your excellent map seems to show that only Nebraska is entirely in the watershed, so I might say something like "living in all of Nebraska and parts of ..."
• At FAC there are a fair number of comparative words and phrases which may be seen a not following NPOV. So "Although vast ... only 10 million" and "while the Platte averages a comparatively mere 6,500 cubic feet per second"
• I do not understand the elevations paragraph - first it says over 12,000 feet, then it gives the highest point as Mt. Elbert at over 14,000 feet. Seems contradictory at least.
• Avoid words like recently or currently as these can become outdated easily Recently efforts to reestablish the riparian zones have been under way; there are currently 87,000 acres (350 km2) of riverside floodplain undergoing active restoration.[25] - the ref is to 2001, so how do we know this is currently ongoing?
• First clause here needs a ref "As one of the continent's most important rivers, the Missouri's drainage basin borders on many other major watersheds of the United States and Canada."
• I am not really sure about this sentence - whole thing is awkward and "pariah in the trouble of" makes no sense to me, plus it seems to say the big Mo is not so bad, then it says it does have a lot of fertilizer runoff... ugh The Missouri, however, is not pariah in the trouble of fertilizer runoff; within the Mississippi Basin, the most heavily affected rivers are the upper Mississippi, the Illinois, and Ohio, although a large amount does travel down the Missouri from farmland in the states of Iowa and Missouri
• A lot of this section is Ecology - should the name be Watershed and Ecology? Or would it make sense to have the Ecology parts later in the article? So where it takes about the effects of channelization and shipping, it might help to have that after those are discussed.
• What are the selection criteria for the streams in the Major tributaries section?

OK, stopping for now. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments; I will try to fix the article in accordance as best as I can. Shannon^talk _contribs 01:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

More, starting with Flow

• While I like the flow charts, I see that they are modified timelines (I think) and do not show the metric equivalents. These seem to be needed per WP:UNITS, so is there some other way this could be done? For example in a spreadsheet program, could a bar graph be done with the labels for both cfs and cms? Also the last sentence here needs a ref.
• Geology "low to the ocean" sounds a bit odd in During the early Cretaceous, over 120 million years ago, North America was a mostly flat and featureless land, likely covered with swamps and marshes and relatively low to the ocean.
• the dimensions of the inland sea seem either too precise (621 miles wide) or too vague (over 2,000 miles long). 2,500 feet (760 m) deep, 621 miles (999 km) wide and over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) long
• tons of sediment need to be in metric untis too.
• I think the article needs a copyedit - language is decent but polish would help the FAC chances.

More to come, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Just curious -- is there any other way to make a graph using Wiki syntax? Shannon^talk _contribs 06:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I do not know of any - might want to ask at the Village Pump Teachnical Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 13:10, 30 October 2010 (UTC)