Wikipedia:Peer review/The Bronx/archive2

The Bronx

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review—again.

The first time around (in 2006), there were hardly any replies. All I can say is that the article on my former U.S. residence has developed for the better, despite the 114k page size.

Thanks, Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 16:56, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by H1nkles

I will do a peer review on this article. It is long and with any long article there is a greater potential for issues. I haven't read a word of the article yet so I can't tell how the review will go. I will likely give overarching comments, and big picture suggestions rather than narrowing in on specific grammatical problems (though if I see something glaring I'll probably mention it). The review will be accomplished in stages and may take a while but I'll get it done. I hope that will suffice.

Lead

This sentence is a run-on sentence, consider breaking up.

"Although the Bronx is the third-most-densely-populated county in the U.S.,[3] about a quarter of its area is open space,[7] including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center, on land deliberately reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed northwards and eastwards from Manhattan with the building of roads, bridges and railways."

History

You have a couple of sentences in which you state the decade (in the 1950's) and then you mention either a different time frame or the same timeframe again in the same sentence. I corrected on instance of this but there are more. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

"The 1950s were hard times, as The Bronx decayed 1950–79 from a predominantly middle-class to a predominantly lower-class area with high rates of crime and poverty."

The 1950s then expands to 1950-79. This creates inconsistency within the sentence and confusion for readers.

Watch one and two sentence paragraphs. These should be combined with other paragraphs or expanded.
Personally I would do away with the introductory paragraph in this section. You cover most of it in the section anyway so the information becomes duplicative. In an article that is over 100kb I think you should start looking for ways to trim out unnecessary content, to me the intro paragraph in this section isn't necessary.
One question that may seem a bit nitpicky but I'll ask it anyway, is The in The Bronx supposed to be capitalized? Usually it isn't but if it is officially part of the proper noun then it's fine. Also the "The" isn't consistently capitalized.
There are a few problems with this sentence:

"In the 1970s, the South Bronx became the iconic of America's urban crisis of unemployment and poverty during the 1970s, as arson in the city's public housing was a persistent symbol of the problem."

It is another example of duplicated time frames - the 1970's isn't needed twice.
"the South Bronx became the iconic..." The iconic what? Symbol? Example?
As above is South supposed to be capitalized?

The paragraph starting with "In the 1970's...." is expanded upon in the next section on fighting decline. Watch summary style here. I think this is a significant part of The Bronx history and the solutions to the problem were both innovative and revolutionary, so I think it bears some coverage in this article. But I think the paragraph duplicates information found in the fighting decline section. Please consider removing the paragraph and moving into the Fighting decline section. Add the information in the "By 2000...." sentence into this section.
I'd like to draw your attention to the Manhattan article, which is a Good article. The history section is very well organized and divided into understandable sub-headings. I'll refer to this article further as we go through the review.

Geography

Is the "Selected Parks and Open Space in the Bronx" table necessary? It's a nice table certainly but is it a necessary part of the article? To me it seems to add too much detail, it seems like most of the parks are linked with in the text of the article, readers interested in a specific park could link to the article about the park to find date of aquisition and size.
There seems to be some selective sourcing here. Some park information is referenced with in-line citations and other park information isn't. This diminishes the credibility of the article.
I would move the see also tagline for the small islands in NYC to the top of the Location and physical features sub-section. I don't know of any MOS requirements that it be at the top of a sub-section but it just seems a bit odd right in the middle of a section.
What are community boards? I would include a brief description in the Neighborhoods and commercial districts sub-section since you have a See also link to it there.
I think South Bronx needs to be a four-level rather than 5-level heading right?
Do we need a list of the neighborhoods in each section of The Bronx? Seems a bit detailed.
Good images here by the way. More to come. H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 19:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Transportation

What is a "free-style" street grid?
There are two embedded lists in this section, could these be broken down into paragraph form. See WP:LIST for concerns about over-use of lists within an article.
Overall I think this section could be improved. Instead of separate subsections for the various forms of transportation, which end up being primarily lists, have three or four paragraphs of prose with the transportation information.

Demographics

The reference is the 2000 census, put it as an in-line citation at the end of each paragraph that relies on it for the information. The Invidual and household income sub-section has no reference, I assume this falls under the census ref but it should be listed in this sub-section.
IMO some of the information here is too detailed: Avg household size/avg family size, median income for a household and for a family (what's the difference? Pick one not both),
Another one sentence paragraphs about affluent neighborhoods in this section, consider combining or expanding.
We don't need to know that the Bronx is 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander and 0.7% American Indian and Alaska Native. Pick the biggest ethnicities represented. I also don't think this tidbit: "8.9% were born in Puerto Rico, U.S. Island areas, or born abroad to American parents" is necessary information.
Why have a list when you explain the ethnic breakdowns in a paragraph? It's redundant, consider removing.
"The Census of 1930 counted only 1.0% (12,930) of the Bronx's population as Negro...." Is "Negro" an appropriate word to use? Could we say African American?
Why is the information about the Golden Krust Bakery & Grill in this section? Other than the fact that it was opened by Jamaican immigrants it really has no connection. I don't think it is notable enough for this article.
The languages spoken in the home other than Spanish and English aren't very significant and then there's another list of European ancestries. Why only European ancestries? What about Asian, South American, African?
I'm not really liking the Demographics section. Several one-sentence paragraphs, embedded lists, and an emphasis on minor details. Also external links should be avoided in the body of the text. See this section in the Manhattan article. It is one section of prose, with a table. Note that for the most part the concentration is on only the most significant groups. I like the racial concentration map, I think that's informative. I don't think this section needs to be as long as the one in the Manhattan article but I think it could be better organized and rewritten to focus on the major statistics.

Government and politics

Could all the very short paragraphs in this section be combined into a few longer paragraphs? It makes the article very choppy to have all the two and three-line paras.
Another embedded list that could be broken down into prose.
I think the Votes for other offices section could be either totally removed or significantly reduced. It is enough to say that the Bronx is overwhelmingly democratic in its voting record. I don't think the actual voting percentages for each significant election from 2004 onward is notable enough for inclusion in a summary article about the Bronx. Perhaps an article about the voting history of the Bronx.
Could the two-sentence sub-section on the Postal service be folded into another sub-section?

Education

I think this section is pretty solid. No issues that I can see here.

Cultural life and institutions

Question: the quote has words like Breaking, Scratching, Break dancing, and Rapping in parentheses. Is this part of the quote or has it been inserted by an editor? If it is part of the quote then great, but if it has been inserted by an editor then I would remove them as it is not a true representation of the quote. See WP:Quote for thoughts on using quotes in WP articles.
The link Dee Jay jumps to a list of characters in the Street Fighter game, it should be changed.
This quote has a problem with it:

"This was hip-hop pioneer KRS-One's inspiration for his thought provoking group BDP...."

Watch terms like "thought provoking". These descriptive terms display a bit of bias. It's hard to quantigy that the group was "thought provoking".

There are several more external links in this section. Consider removing them per WP:EL.
There isn't much in the way of referencing in the The press and broadcasting sub-section.

The Bronx reflected on screen, in literature and in song

The See also should be at the top of the sub-section about movies not at the bottom.
It isn't usually kosher to list songs from another WP article in this article without an independent reference.

References

The important thing with referencing is that the format be consistent. I see several inconsistencies in your reference list.

Ref 29 has no publisher, same with 36 and several other refs.
Refs 46-49 have no accessdate.
Try to use a template like {{cite web}} for example.
Ref 83 is just an ISBN number, not sure what that is supposed to reference. If it is to reference a book then put in the book's reference with title, author, publisher, location, etc. Use {{cite book}} template as a guide.

Overall impression

I think the article is well on its way, the heavy lifting of research has already been done. Now it is formatting and polish, that is really what most of my suggestions revolve around.
The length is an issue and I think that there are several areas where information could be trimmed. The images are all good but there are quite a few of them. Perhaps a few of those could be removed. I know we don't have to slavishly hold to the 100kb limit but I think in this case there are enough places where information could be chopped that the article could drop below the 100kb threshold without doing much damage to the article as a whole.
I commend you for your work and I hope that the review will be helpful as you move the article forward. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me on my talk page. If you found the review helpful please consider reviewing an article at Peer Review or at WP:GAC to help reduce the backlog. Best of luck to you. H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 21:17, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]