Wikipedia:Peer review/New Netherland/archive1

New Netherland edit

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…substantial work has been done in the last months with improved text, format, references, links, and series template

Thanks, Djflem (talk) 00:10, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is a most interesting and enjoyable article. It is broad and possibly comprehensive, neutral, stable, well-written, and well-illustrated. At least some of the references still have problems, as noted below, and I have a few other suggestions for improvement.

  • I believe those em dashes in the infobox should be en dashes.
  • A, an, and the are normally avoided as the first word of a section title unless it's a proper noun. Thus, "The North River and the Manhattans" should be shortened to "North River and the Manhattans". Ditto for all other section heads like this one.

Origins

  • (The narrows are named for Giovanni da Verrazzano who had sighted them in 1524.[2]) - Footnote number after end parentheses?
  • One-sentence and two-sentence paragraphs are generally frowned upon. Suggestion: merge the three short ones at the end into one bigger one.*"1613-1614" - En dash in date ranges rather than hyphen, per Manual of Style. Ditto elsewhere in the article.

Development

  • "were used by the New Netherland Company (a newly formed alliance of trading companies) to win their patent" - Should this be "its patent" rather than "their patent"?

Algonquians and the Iroquois

  • "It is likely the Hudson's peaceful contact with the local Mahicans" - Should that be "that Hudson's" rather than "the Hudson's"?

Early settlement

  • "Most of the settlers were not Dutch, but Walloons, Huguenots, or Africans (who were brought as slaves)." - Merge with the paragraph above?

Director-General of New Amsterdam

  • "During the period of his governorship that province experienced exponential growth." - Should it be "the province" rather than "that province"?

Fresh River and New England

  • "50 Dutch miles" - Not sure what this means. If Dutch miles differ from miles, an in-text explanation would help.

Legacy

  • "as well as by the character of those who immigrated to it" - Emigrated" rather than "immigrated"?

"Lore"

  • "The seven arrows in the lion's left claw in the Republic's coat of arms, representing the seven provinces, was a precedent for the thirteen arrows in the eagle's left claw in the Great Seal of the United States." - Merge with paragraph above?

"References"

  • Some of the citations are incomplete. All the on-line ones need access dates, for example. They should have publishers and publication dates too, if possible. You may be asked whether the dot-coms are reliable sources.

Images

  • Images generally should be set to "thumb" size rather than a forced pixel width except for the lead image in the infobox.
  • I think the image licenses are OK except that the source is not clearly identified for Image:Wpdms aq block 1614.jpg. It's probably a scan from a book, certainly in the public domain. It would be good to add bibliographic data about the source if you can track it down.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 04:03, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some of above has been implemented. See below for reference check. Other question regarding footnote, miles, etc to be researchedDjflem (talk) 12:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]