Wikipedia:Peer review/Nueces Bay/archive1

Nueces Bay

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I believe it has potential to be a possible featured article candidate. Feedback, suggestions for improvement, and general comments on the article would be appreciated.

Thanks, William S. Saturn (talk) 06:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is interesting and broad in coverage but not yet comprehensive. Here are a few suggestions for further improvement.

Possibilities for expansion

• Infobox: Consider switching to a geobox and adding more data, including a locator map showing where the bay is in Texas. You can find the geobox explanation at Template:Geobox. The Texas locator map is at File:Texas Locator Map.PNG. Installed in the geobox, it will automatically add a red dot corresponding to the coordinates you enter for the bay's location.

• Hydrology: Add data about climate, rainfall, tides, or anything else affecting the flow of water into and out of the bay.

• Geology: Add everything important that happened to the area before 9000 CE.

• Pollution: I'd consider renaming the "Industry" section "Pollution", expanding the TMDL information, and adding anything else (storm-sewer run-off, for example) that affects the bay.

• Recreation: I'd consider adding a recreation section to include sport fishing, boating, swimming, bird-watching, parks (if any).

• Ecosystem: Add information about the flora in and near the water.

• Watershed: Consider adding a section that includes the city information but also adds detail about the streams entering the bay. What governments or other entities have jurisdiction in the watershed? How much of the watershed is urban, and how much is agricultural? Any forests? Major highways? Airports? Port facilities? How big is the watershed? (You give the Nueces River watershed size but mention other small streams; it's not clear from this whether the bay watershed is identical to the river watershed.)

Lead

• Could you add the correct pronunciation of "Nueces" to the opening line?

• "To the west, the Odem Bay extension is formed, and is fed by Rincon Bayou and a large complex of marsh formed by the Nueces River delta." - I'm not sure a delta can form a marsh or that a bay can be said to be formed in the present tense. Would something purely descriptive work better? Maybe "To the west is the Odem Bay extension, fed by Rincon Bayou and a large marsh complex in the Nueces River delta."

History

• "Nueces Bay formed approximately 9,000 years ago, as the sea level rose at the conclusion of the last ice age. The sea level stabilized 6,000 years later, shaping the present-day Nueces Bay." - To meet the FA requirement that the article be comprehensive, I think you need to expand the geology coverage by millions of years. Where did the oil come from, for example? Has anything been published about the proximity of the area to the Chicxulub crater?

• "an 1835 map of Texas identified it as Papelote[4] or "wastepaper" Bay." - Any idea why it would have been called "wastepaper bay"? Is the translation reliable?

• Link Copano Bay and Baffin Bay?

• "In the next century, the Karankawa Indians arrived, and were present when Europeans came ashore." - Is it known when the Europeans arrive? Which specific Europeans? I assume they were Spanish since the date of the Spanish map is 1527 and precedes any of the other dates you mention in relation to the Europeans.

• "After the railroad passed on the town in 1905" - Maybe "bypassed" rather than "passed on"?

• "David Sinton and later Charles Phelps Taft, whose names are immortalized by the nearby towns of Sinton and Taft" - "Immortalized" is a bit flowery. Perhaps "David Sinton and later Charles Phelps Taft, after whom the nearby towns of Sinton and Taft were named,... "?

• I'd consider breaking up the long last paragraph just to give readers a rest between towns. Maybe Corpus Christi could have its own paragraph, and the others could stay together in a second paragraph.

Features

• I like the map, but it would be nice if it included the names of the points, if you can find room to add them.

• "The bay leads back west to Whites Point on the north shore, which is largely used for agriculture." - What kinds of agriculture?

• The oil and agriculture claims are sourced to a home page for Google topo maps. There are a couple of problems with this. In the first place, the link doesn't go directly to a map that verifies the claims. Secondly, it's not clear that the source is reliable since no author is named. Where did Google get the maps? Who made the maps? Do the maps really support descriptions like "Due south of Whites Point at the mouth of Odem Bay, is an oil field, situated against the backdrop of heavy industry on the shore to the southwest"? I have often linked to the map set published by TopoQuest, which uses United States Geological Survey (USGS) maps that are somewhat (not sure of the exact age) dated. I note with interest that Odem Bay does not appear on the USGS map here. I don't find an Odem Bay in the Geographic Names Information System listings, although here is Nueces Bay. Is it possible that the marshes were more extensive in the recent past and that Odem Bay did not exist? If so, were the marshes deliberately removed (dredged) to create essentially a new bay?

Ecosystem

• Can something be added here about the flora in and near the water? What plants grow in the marshes, for example?

• Can something be added about the diet of the fish? What microorganisms live in the water?

• "hurting the natural oyster" - Link oyster here instead of later.

• The bird names like Black Skimmer take initial caps.

Industry

• "has established the Total Maximum Daily Load Program" - Link Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Program?

• Can you give any TMDL specifics? What parameters are being monitored? What are the TMDLs for each parameter and to what extent are they being met or exceeded?

• "of oil leaked from a busted pipeline" - "Broken" rather than "busted", which is slang.

References

• The date formatting in the citations must be consistent to pass FAC. In citation 25, for example, you use July 10, 2006, and 1 July 2010. I would suggest changing the second one to July 1, 2010, and using this format throughout.

• You can use the "|format" parameter in citation 27 to say "subscription required" for the full JSTOR article.

Other

• You might all alt text for the images, although that is not at the moment an FA requirement. WP:ALT has details.

• The dab checker tool above finds one link that goes to a disambiguation page instead of its intended target.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR. That is where I found this one. I don't generally check corrections after my reviews because it's too time-consuming. Please ping me on my talk page if my comments are unclear or if questions arise. Finetooth (talk) 18:12, 5 August 2010 (UTC)