Wikipedia:Peer review/Mont Blanc massif/archive1

Mont Blanc massif

I've listed this article for peer review because it has just achieved GA status That reviewer observed that it already exceeds GA standards, and I have been trying to work to all the FA guidance. This is a really important mountain region of the European Alps, and I'm prepared to respond to all criticism to get this to be the first article from within the WP:Alps Project to attain FA status. I perceive two possible style issues: 1) the use of a gallery to put two important maps side-by-side, and 2) my use of pre-collapsed tables to keep page-length down unless actually required by the reader. Parkywiki (talk) 00:58, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't have a lot of time, but since you asked for a review, here are some things I noticed on a quick look at the article. I will preface my comments by saying I have been pretty inactive on WP lately and things may have changed in terms of what is expected in FAs.

Here are seven points that would be issues at FAC from one sentence in the lead "It contains eleven major independent summits, each over 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) in height, and is named after Mont Blanc which, at 4,808.73 metres (15,776.7 ft), is regarded as the highest point in western Europe.[1]"

• Minor point, but on my computer there is a break like a new paragraph after the height of Mont Blanc (perhaps due to the template used?)

 Done Hmm - weird. It wasn't doing that before, so I've removed template and reverted to the usual 'convert' template until I can find the cause of the line break.

• The lead has a reference - my thought was always that the lead either should have refs for everything (like the rest of the article) OR much more commonly the lead should only have refs for direct quotes and extraordinary claims (since the lead summarizes the article and the refs are in the article). This is neither.

 Done Removed and I will re-cite further down the article with a better source.

• The reference used is a bit odd - it is a WP:RS, but it seems like there could be more fitting refs on the range than a brief Australian newspaper article.

 Done

• The language is a bit clunky "...Mont Blanc which, at 4,808.73 metres (15,776.7 ft), is regarded as the highest point in western Europe.[1]" Is there controversy as to what is the highest peak in Europe? I do not think so, so why "is regarded as"? The whole sentence could be smoother, so something like "It contains eleven major independent summits, each over 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) in height, and is named after Mont Blanc (4,808.73 metres (15,776.7 ft)), the highest point in western Europe."

 Done

• Plus when I checked the 1st ref (from 2009), it says "The new height of Mont Blanc, which lies on the three-way border between France, Italy and Switzerland, is now 4810.45m" BUT the article sentence it is used as a ref for says Mont Blanc is 4,808.73 m (nearly 2 m shorter). A ref should say what the article says (I know Mont Blanc has shrunk as it is snow covered, but a 2009 ref does not give the current height).

 Done

• Looking at the list of refs, Ref 14 and Ref 1 are the same reference, so they should be ONE ref, not the same ref repeated. The whole list of refs needs to be checked for things like this.

 Done

• Looking at the references in general, many of them are missing required information like publisher or date or date accessed (for web refs). So ref 14 is only the title of the article, it needs all the other information (as is given in its Ref 1 version)

 Done

A few more points

• Make sure all of the refs used are reliable sources - see WP:RS. For example Ref 15 from an advocacy group seeking to have the massif protected as a UN World Heritage Site. While I personally think this is a great idea, I am not sure that this is a RS for most facts (though it is for documenting the drive to protect the RS).

I don't actually think this is an issue here, as the information cited from their documents were mostly not opinions, but simple background statements of factual evidence about the range. The organisation itself is a consortium of professional bodies, so I would regard the contextual content as reliable.

• Make sure everything is referenced - the list of mountain huts does not seem to have any references, for example.

 Done

• I also wondered if the table of mountain huts might be better off as a List article of its own, that could be linked here with a brief summary.

I would prefer to keep this together, so will perhaps await what is said at WP:FAC

• Similarly the table of glaciers might be better as its own list article - your call. It also needs a better ref - the note is not linked to the actual reference.

 Done

• The main summits table seems OK for this article (which is on the massif), but needs a better ref.: Done It might also be possible to make a List of ALL of the summits and link that and only give the summits over a certain height here.

A good point, but unfortunately not a very practical one as there are innumerable subsidiary summits very close to main summits which would overly-complicate the issue. There are already other Lists of summit points over 4,000 metres, so my intention here was to include even the lower peaks if they were significantly prominent mountain features (ie isolated and visible, even if not that great in altitude), as they would never be significant enough to warrant their own page, yet are significant within the context of the massif as a whole. So it was their chance to be indexed and findable here.

• I thought See also was just for links that were not already in the article, but the poem on Mont Blanc is already quoted and linked here - see WP:See also

 Done

• The two maps in Geography are a bit confusing - they show some of the same territory (there is overlap), so is there any way they could combined into one map? Also it is not clear (to me) what the national boundaries are on these maps (where are Italy, France and Switzerland)? Also looking closely at File:Mont Blanc massif (west).jpg, it literally cuts off some of the labels in the top right corner. I think one map would be clearer.

This might be difficult to achieve if, as I want to do, I keep the 'North at the top approach'. I have now re-made the image files with countries added, and shifted the contents slightly, though have kept the intentional overlap.

 Done

• Lots of nice pictures - be careful as there are a few places where pictures sandwich text between them (pix L and R, text between) which at least used to frowned on.

Having pointed out some issues that would likely be raised at FAC, I wanted to take a moment and say that there is a lot done nicely in the article. It is mostly well written and has a lot of material in it and is well organized. There has obviously been a lot of work put into this - nice job. Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 12:33, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much, @Ruhrfisch: - I really appreciate the time you've taken to give me this feedback - some very obvious ones that I should have noticed, plus some others for fuller consideration, including the practicalities around merging the two maps and how they might appear, along with whitespace, on the page. That gives me a few things to crack on with and address now. Regards. Parkywiki (talk) 00:48, 11 May 2016 (UTC)