Talk:Gowanus Canal/GA1

GA Reassessment

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I do however have some general comments and two specific points to go with them (See below). Firstly, some quite large sections of this article are very sparsely sourced and should have a lot more. Secondly, most of the web sources are improperly cited (see citations section below). Thirdly, parts of this article assume a familiarity with Brooklyn that a lot of readers don't have. Consider rephrasing and explaining a bit more.

• "The canal was also the first site where chemical fertilizers were manufactured." - worldwide? In America? In New York? where?
• I have added a tag to the article concerning the mafia association. This should be quite simple to sort out.

The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, Jackyd101 (talk) 14:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Citations

The internet inline citations used in this article are improperly formatted. Internet citations require at the very least information on the title, publisher and last access date of any webpages used. If the source is a news article then the date of publication and the author are also important. This information is useful because it allows a reader to a) rapidly identify a source's origin b) ascertain the reliability of that source and c) find other copies of the source should the website that hosts it become unavaliable for any reason. It may also in some circumstances aid in determining the existance or status of potential copyright infringments. Finally, it looks much tidier, making the article appear more professional. There are various ways in which this information can be represented in the citation, listed at length at Wikipedia:Citing sources. The simplest way of doing this is in the following format:

<ref>{{cite web|(insert URL)|title=|publisher=|work=|date=|author=|accessdate=}}</ref>

As an example:

• <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.discovery.org/a/3859|title=Avoiding a Thirty Years War|publisher=www.discovery.org|work=[[The Washington Post]]|date=2006-12-21|author=Richard W. Rahn|accessdate=2008-05-25}}</ref>

which looks like:

• Richard W. Rahn (2006-12-21). "Avoiding a Thirty Years War". The Washington Post. www.discovery.org. Retrieved 2008-05-25.

If any information is unknown then simply omit it, but title, publisher and last access dates are always required. I strongly recommend that all internet inline references in this article be formatted. If you have any further questions please contact me and as mentioned above, more information on this issue can be found at Wikipedia:Citing sources. Regards