Wikipedia:Peer review/Phoenix, Arizona/archive1

Phoenix, Arizona

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…

I've just finished a major overhaul of the page, including editing, linkage, citations, updating and structure (per the wikiproject cities guidelines). Would appreciate feedback in any of those areas, would also like to know if folks find it deficient (and why) to be included in the Featured Article category.

Thanks, Onel5969 (talk) 21:27, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I have to congratulate you on your good work with improving this article! I really think you should request a copyedit by the WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors. And after that copyedit is completed you could start with nominating it for GA-status. That is a first step. If you want me to request the copyedit at the Wikiproject please let me know at my talk page. I think you will be getting more feedback from other users as well which will be helpful. --BabbaQ (talk) 23:46, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I've just gone over the history and will try to get to the rest of the article tomorrow. There's a strange habit of breaking into present tense where it shouldn't but nothing else that's major from a copyediting perspective. Some notes to start:

I think the change in tense is due to different editors going over the article.

• The lead could easily increase by 50% in size. Could mention economic history and present attractions, amongst other things. You should also better situate geographically by mentioning Maricopa County and the Salt River Valley.

Excellent points. I've adjusted, let me know what you think of the new lead. (although I had already mentioned it was the seat of Maricopa county)

• "Later, Maricopa peoples fleeing enemy tribes, came from the lower Gila River near its confluence with the Colorado River, and settled alongside, as well as deer and Mexican wolves, often lived in the Salt River Valley when water supplies and temperatures allowed." I decided not to copyedit this sentence directly as I couldn't make it out—it seems to be two sentences mashed together.

Yup, I agree. I think I've corrected it.

• Last two-thirds of Native American section is unreferenced. My only complaint about references.

Done

• "On February 12, 1871, the territorial legislature created Maricopa County, the sixth one formed, by dividing Yavapai County." The sixth formed where? In all of Arizona?

done

• "The Phoenix City Council levied a $5,000,000 tax for a public library after the state legislature..." That's a hell of a lot for a library in 1900. The Capital building mentioned in the previous sentence was only $130,000. Please doublecheck and source.

Yes, if you look in the last paragraph of the source, it says $5 mill. I interpreted that to mean $5 Million.

• "In 1913 Phoenix adopted a new form of government, from mayor-council to council-manager, making it one of the first cities in the United States with this form of city government." What form of city government? The sentence doesn't make clear to me what is unique about the new arrangement.

That's why I link the pages. Not sure how detailed you'd like me to be here.

• I really enjoyed the history in general but 1990-present is weak. The first paragraph is basically four random facts strung together. Unpack these or drop them as necessary.

I agree. I did little work, other than c/e in this section. I will get to it shortly.

• "Phoenix has maintained a growth streak in recent years, growing by 24.2% before 2007." You need a range here: from 20xx until 2007.

Will go over the last half soon. Good job! Dontreadalone (talk) 05:01, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I think I'll actually do this in three parts as it's so big. Here's some other notes:

• In the first paragraph of climate it states that the temperate breaks 100 degrees for 110 days of the year; a couple of sentences later it says 92 days.

fixed

• "The population density was 2,797.8,." Per square mile?

I am unsure what you're referring to. In the section BEFORE climate, it says this is per square mile. Is there another reference in the climate section, or after, which doesn't?

• There's a habit in the article to incorrectly use the adverb "here" when referring to the city. People "moved here," companies are "located here," etc. I think I've eliminated all instances but keep an eye out for it.

thanks

• I don't have a problem spending extra time on the Patience sculpture in Fine arts but it's all that gets described. Could you mention one or two other things along with maybe half a sentence on the First Friday event?

will research and work on it.

• Bluelinking is inconsistent. In the Culture section there are links to half the attractions but not to the others. In Economy all the occupations are linked but under Flora and fauna not a single species has a link. I think the whole thing should be audited for this. Dontreadalone (talk) 19:28, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

In the culture section, I went through every link which wasn't a "redlink". I will go through the flora section and add page links.

I want to thank you for your comments. Very helpful, and will add to the overall quality of the article.

Alright, I've done going through this. Just a couple of last points:

• Great improvement on the lead!
• Are "Valley of the Sun" and "Salt River Valley" synonymous? You should clarify when you first mention Salt River Valley.

No, they are not synonymous. The Valley of the Sun is part of the Salt River Valley. Added note in the lead section.

• Audit for capitalization on stand alone uses of valley/Valley. It's sometimes upper case, but usually not. I'd say treating it as a proper noun is fine if you want upper case but it should be consistent either way.

think I've fixed this. on the whole, valley in this article should not be capitalized.

• Referencing gets spotty at points (beginning of Crime, Post-secondary education). Obviously you'll want to give this another referencing sweep before FA.

I agree. These were two sections which I simply merged into the article as a whole from existing data. I did attempt to get crime data, but could not accomplish that through the net. Will head down to the library and bring it up to date.

• Crime data is five years out-of-date.

see above.

• The population density sentence missing a specification is in the fourth paragraph of demographics.

fixed.

And that's about it! Glad this has improved things. Dontreadalone (talk) 20:02, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Again, thanks for all your input. After I fix the crime and education sections I will submit it to FA. Couldn't have done it without you. Onel5969 (talk) 03:26, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

@Dontreadalone: Okay, I think it's done. Finished updating the Crime section, and edited the secondary education. Thanks for your eye... couldn't have done it without you. Onel5969 (talk) 05:53, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

OK good. Crime section is fine now. Just a reminder that 1990-present should also be worked over. One thing I didn't do was a comprehensive audit of refs. If this goes to FA and no other outside party has done that then I will try to do so myself. Dontreadalone (talk) 03:55, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@Dontreadalone: Thanks. I completely redid the entire history section. There was an issue I couldn't figure out in setting up a separate "History of Phoenix, Arizona" page. Every time I attempted it, it wouldn't let me create one, just kept taking me back to the history section on the Phoenix page. Got some help, and that's corrected, so I really trimmed down the History, and put the bulked out history onto the History page. Also, just added and changed a couple of photos. I'm going to ask one or two other editors to give it a go over and then submit it for FA status. Hope you don't mind if I mention you when I ask for FA review, you did a ton of work on this too. Onel5969 (talk) 05:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)