Talk:1968 Illinois earthquake/GA1

GA Review

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First Comments

I think the article in general is informative, but could use some expansion of the "See Also" that give it more context as a notable geological event; while it said it was the largest in Illinois, this of itself is not sufficient. A 5.4-5.5 is a moderate strength quake in other contexts.

• See also done. —Ceran ♦ (talk) 01:11, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Some additional observations:

• WikiLink some of the name places in order to build the web

  Done. —Ceran ♦ (talk) 00:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

(*::Note to self, add http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2002NC/finalprogram/abstract_31987.htm)

• Maybe some additional images

• Some expansion on the importance of this article. I understand the community feels this article is notable, and I am somewhat inclusionist, but by reading this article I do not get a sense of global notability.

• Many articles on earthquake damage include specific economic figures, and talk about the economic effects, not just the destruction. Someone looking for information ont his earthquake in wikipedia will probably want to know this information. I think it needs to elaborate on this.

Some of these things I could fix myself, but I decided to do a GA review instead and don't want to edit the article directly. Thanks!--Cerejota (talk) 05:57, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Quick comments

I am not sure if the initial review above has been abandoned or not. WP:GAC has no under review tag so I decided to come here and help out.

You have an epicenter. Tell us what county that is. If there is a municipality at that locus name it. Even if the municipality is current but did not exist then it will help us. I think south of St. Louis is inaccurate. It looks east by maybe 100 miles. Get this right. I would make mention of Illinois-Indiana-Kentucky Tri-State Area in the article.

You have a longitude and latitude. Please figure out for the reader where this is. I live in Illinois and am confused. Please at a minimum we need to know what county this latitude and longitude is in.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:25, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• I just read citation number one. It gives three points of reference in terms of the location, while this article only gives one (St. Louis). It also describes the affected area in a way that the article does not. Please help the reader. The article mentions Hamilton County, Illinois. I am not sure if this is where the epicenter is estimated to be.
• Citation number two explains the points from which the epicenter was estimated. This is not in the article.
• What is going on with ref #4?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 07:24, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

You need to beef up the article. Old reliable for me is the New York Times. I see two stories that might help you expand the article:

1. No Further Tremors Foreseen Following Quakes in 22 States - November 11, 1968 (here is a link: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=2&res=F70B13F73E54157493C3A8178AD95F4C8685F9)
2. 22 STATES STRUCK BY STRONG QUAKE; Wide Area From Minnesota to Carolina Hit by Tremor - November 10, 1968 (here is another link: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=2&res=F10E10F839541B7A8EDDA90994D9415B888AF1D3 )
3. Here is a less helpful one http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=2&res=F60C14FE385D137A93C4A81789D85F4D8685F9

• Done. —Ceran ♦ ♦ (speak) 20:59, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Was only one article usable. I think only one is in the citations. I see you cleaned up info on the location in agreement with the NYT articles without citing them.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:25, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Start there. Even a few snippets from each will surely help us. You may need to go to your local library to find more. If you are going to the library, look for the stories in the Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other nearby large city dailies. Evansville, Indiana seems to be the nearest city. They must have newspaper accounts. This is not one you can do easily on the internet. I may not be able to pass it without you getting some newspaper stories.

For the first few days AP or UPI sources across the nation might be carrying the same story. However the more local newspaper will carry details for longer. We may need to figure out more about the location and determine which paper are going to be able to help.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:27, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if reminiscing about the year will help, but a lot of stuff was happening at the time (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,966422,00.html). Maybe something relevant is in this story.

• looking... —Ceran ♦ ♦ (speak) 21:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, this is not my field, but add a caption to the main image describing what we are looking at. Is it an Iso-richter scale map or some such?

• done. —Ceran ♦ ♦ (speak) 21:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the iso map touches Windsor, Ontario. Was Canada affected at all. Were there reports of tremors? The current article suggests tremors were felt even much farther northeast into Canada. The infobox belies this.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Um, Canada? I'm not sure we're looking at the same map...
  • Yes Canada. Windsor is just east of Detroit. Since one of the article I linked to you says Toronto was affected, Windsor had to be. Maybe there was no damage and just a thump. I don't know what counts as affected for this template. Let me know what you think, but isoseismally Windsor was more affected that Toronto.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:19, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

  Alright, I'll be able to get to this later! Thanks for the review, Tony. —Ceran ♦ ♦ (speak) 20:07, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Formal review

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

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There has been passing interest in following the advice of reviewers. The article continues to be deficient with respect to the limited set of sources. Many important details in the secondary sources continues to be omitted. The text has some stylistic problems.

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   The prose is sketchy at times. Sample problems include:

"The earthquake was the largest ever recorded in Illinois, a Richter scale magnitude 5.4.–5.5." is ungrammatical

1. B. MoS compliance:

   There are some stylistic problems. The Geography section has a couple of one line paragraphs and at one point there are multiple line breaks between paragraphs. Some units have metric conversions and other do not. All should.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   Limit resources are referenced.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   I still am having problems with the fact that details from the limited resources are not fully used. I think the reader should have a better undersanding of the locatioin of the quake and the sources of estimates of the location and measurement. The resources contain a lot of information that I have been hoping would be added to the article over the last week.

   B. Focused:

   The article does not go off-topic.

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   Adequate representation of events

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

   No edit warring confirmed.

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   These are both U.S. government photos.

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   For an event from 40 years ago having a representative photo and a diagramatic depiction is more than satisfactory.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   I think a better effort to raise the quality of the article over the last week would have caused me to give this a hold, but the article is somewhat neglected for an article under review.