Talk:Lake Alamosa

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Lake Alamosa/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Tayi Arajakate (talk · contribs) 12:48, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Meta-discussion

Hello Jo-Jo Eumerus, I'll be the one to review this nomination. I'll be posting further comments within the next few days. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 12:48, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the late review, turns out it's more difficult to understand geological reports than I thought. Jo-Jo Eumerus, pinging, since I have completed the review and put it on hold for the time being. I might have missed some things so I'll go over it again but for the most part there are some prose issues to be resolved from my understanding. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 18:45, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus, I've added some suggestions for prose if you'll have them. Otherwise, I've done a second brief review and there doesn't appear to be anything else left. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:51, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus, I think the article by now meets the criterion of a good article so I'll pass it, especially since there doesn't seem to be any other "former lakes" among good articles. The prose is a lot better now but I have a bit of reservation on this, for example it could have been expanded a lot more from the sources that are present here, in terms of geology, geological history as well as research history. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 08:31, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Assessment

1. Comprehension: The comprehension is adequate enough for a good article.
Pass

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (prose)	Some of the prose could be improved, details are listed in comments below. (update) Resolved for the most part.	Pass
(b) (MoS)	Complaint with the manual of style but layout could be better, details are listed in comments below.	Neutral

2. Verifiability: The article is verifiable for the most part.
Pass

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (references)	No issues were found with regards formatting of references.	Pass
(b) (citations to reliable sources)	Citations are from reliable scholarly sources.	Pass
(c) (original research)	No instances of original research were found.	Pass
(d) (copyvio and plagiarism)	No copyright issues found.	Pass

3. Comprehensiveness: The article is comprehensive enough.
Pass

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (major aspects)	There is space for expansion though I suppose the article adequately covers an overview of the subject.	Neutral
(b) (focused)	The article is focused and without any unnecessary deviations.	Pass

4. Neutrality: The article adheres to the policy on neutral point of view.
Pass

Notes	Result
Citations are from diverse sources.	Pass

5. Stability: The article is stable.
Pass

Notes	Result
No edit warring or content disputes.	Pass

6. Illustration: The article is illustrated with available images.
Pass

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales)	Images are tagged with appropriate copyright statuses.	Pass
(b) (appropriate use with suitable captions)	Use of images are appropriate and have suitable captions.	Pass

Current status: Pass

Comments

• Issues with prose and manual of style.

• The word "highstand" may be confusing for those unfamiliar with geology as a subject, I'd suggest adding a dating or period for the highstand in the lead itself to make it more clear.

  Added a parenthetical explanation - the thing about lake highstands is that one usually knows they occurred without knowing when. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  The parenthetical explanation works. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:49, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• The following lines, "The lake was a high altitude lake in southern Colorado. It reached an elevation of 2,335 meters (7,661 ft) at highstand and covered most of the San Luis Valley/San Luis Basin north of the San Luis Hills. Westwards, Lake Alamosa reached to the San Juan Mountains close to Monte Vista to the west. Northwards, it almost reached the present-day location of Saguache." could be phrased better.

  Oy, this one was hard. Did a minor rewrite but I am not sure if there is a better wording. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  I could suggest one, for example in the following form, "The lake was a high altitutde lake in southern Colorado covering most of San Luis Valley. It reached an elevation of 2,335 meters (7,661 ft) at highstand and spread across the San Luis Basin till the north of San Luis Hills. In the west, Lake Alamosa spread towards the San Juan Mountains and close to Monte Vista. While in the north, it almost reached the present-day location of Saguache." Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:47, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  Applied a slight variation. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:58, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• "The lake" as a heading could be re-named to "Description". The section on climate could as well be merged under this section.

  Well, that didn't cross my mind. Renamed, but "climate" isn't a property of a lake so I wouldn't merge them. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  Actually, yeah, nevermind this point. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:31, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• The following line, "The lake would have been nourished by glacial meltwater coming from the San Juan, Sawatch, and Sangre de Cristo Mountains." should use "was" instead of "would have been".

  Renamed. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• History is usually at the top so perhaps the two sections can be placed as the first two sections.

  Eh, I think that for such natural events which mostly pre-date human presence a lower location is better. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  Alright. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:32, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• The last two paragraphs of the subsection "After the overflow" isn't per se history and would be better placed under "The lake" or "Description".

  True, but the "after the overflow" section becomes very short then. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  Couldn't the section just be merged with "Overflow" which could be renamed "Overflow and aftermath"? The last paragraph under "Overflow" does describe a bit of the aftermath. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:30, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• The following lines, "Jacob Fowler first described the existence of the former lake in 1811–1812. Decades before the region was settled and earlier than other geologic expeditions such as these of John Wesley Powell, he recorded the following:" read awkwardly and can create confusion between the two people. It should also use "those" instead of "these".

  I admit, no better formulation comes to mind. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  How about something akin to the following, "Decades before the region was settled and earlier than geologic expeditions such as those of John Wesley Powell, in a 1811–1812 hunting and trapping expedition, Jacob Fowler had recorded the following:" ? Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:28, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  Tried a variant of that. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:58, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• The following lines, "In 1910 proof of the existence of the lake was found in well logs. The lake is named after the Alamosa Formation, which in turn received its name from Siebenthal 1910 who in that year postulated the existence of a former lake in the Alamosa Basin." read awkwardly as well, also shouldn't it be "named by Siebenthal"? There also needs to be comma after "In 1910" and there shouldn't be a need to mention the year twice.

  That's the standard naming for a scientific paper. I am a little iffy on reframing it so that it refers to a person. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  In that case, I'd suggest reframing it to something like the following, "The lake is named after the Alamosa Formation, which in turn was designated its name in the paper Siebenthal 1910; Claude Siebenthal had postulated the existence of the former lake in the Alamosa Basin. The proof of the existence of the lake was found in well logs in the same year." Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:20, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• The following line, "Later, the geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden in 1875 wrote a more detailed account of the former lake, although he got some details wrong." is left a bit vague and can be elaborated on a bit since some examples are given in the cited source. The line should also come before the preceding line.

  Expanded a little. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  The line should also come before the 1910 confirmation. So, it doesn't make sense to present it after that. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:22, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  Did the first; I am not sure about the second change since the current structure groups related topics together. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:58, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  The word "later" should be removed at the least in that case. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 08:21, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

• Other minor issues.

• The lake's length north–south is given as 105 km in the cited source instead of 104 km.

  Done. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• The inline citations could be formatted better, too many references in between sentences make it at times difficult to read a sentence without breaks.

  Can't be done w/o making it harder to track information to a specific source, sorry. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  That's alright, I suppose. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:28, 23 October 2020 (UTC)