Talk:North Potomac, Maryland
Latest comment: 3 years ago by SounderBruce in topic GA Review
 | North Potomac, Maryland has been listed as one of the Geography and places good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: June 25, 2020. (Reviewed version). |
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GA Review edit
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- This review is transcluded from Talk:North Potomac, Maryland/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: SounderBruce (talk · contribs) 11:13, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Will review a bit later. SounderBruce 11:13, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for looking at this. TwoScars (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
- I have also been looking into elevating some CDPs and unincorporated areas up to GA standards, so I'm also watching closely here. As it stands, I think you should draw inspiration from small-town articles, even if things don't line up perfectly. A surprising amount can be extracted from small-town resources, as I saw when researching Darrington, Washington. SounderBruce 05:57, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Infobox and lead edit
- The flags aren't necessary, per MOS:INFOBOXFLAG
- I would put median income and other demographic information (besides total population) in a later paragraph, rather than being so early.
- "agricultural history" → historically rural or some other form that sounds less robotic
- "area" is overused in the lead; introducing other names would be beneficial here
- "1800s" is repeated twice in a single sentence; prefer use of 19th/20th century over 00s because of the first-decade overlap
- "get" → "have" might be a bit better here
- "good schools" is POV-ish
- Addressed all of these issues with a re-write of the intro.
History edit
- This section is extremely short. Even if this CDP was not designated until recently, surely there has to be local history that be incorporated in here.
- Merge the first two sentences, as they are presumably listing the two subdivisions that are mentioned for 1970
- "and the ZIP Code used by the Postal Service for most of North Potomac, 20878, is also used by Gaithersburg" should be split into its own sentence, separated by a semicolon, or merged in appropriately.
- "bordered roughly" → "roughly bordered"
- Shouldn't this belong in the Geography subsection? If it's meant to be a historic border, then a year is needed.
Part 2 edit
- "Today's" should be replaced by "Modern-day" or "Present-day"; mix it up for variety
- "first settlements started in 1688" is a little plain; I suggest "first settlements were founded in 1688"
- Changed to "The first settlements were established in 1688,...."
- "19th Century" should not be capitalized
- "made it easier for farmers to get their crops to markets" is a bit plain too; I suggest "provided farmers with better access to markets"
- "became more prosperous" can be dropped
- There's a length gap between 1883 and 1970. Please expand on when/how the suburbs were developed in this region.
- Working on it. Remember that the area was almost all farmland until the 1980s. TwoScars (talk) 20:11, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- Added "Eventually, some of the farmland was sold. During the Great Depression, some farmers became eager to sell their land because of financial hardship. Wealthy individuals began buying property in the Potomac area as part of their search for land where they could ride horses and hunt. Some farms, such as the 355-acre (144 ha) Maple Spring Farm, continued well into the 20th century. Much of this farm's land was sold in the 1970s and became North Potomac's Dufief subdivision." TwoScars (talk) 22:16, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
- Added more about the horse farm and last farm to be developed. TwoScars (talk) 14:39, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
Historic Places edit
- Section heading should use sentence case
- "over 300 years ago" - please use a specific decade or century
- "long history" should be dropped
- "were the crops of choice" should also be dropped; instead, use "but later replaced by corn, wheat, and oats"
Geography edit
- "beginning with 1990" should be "since 1990"
- The state's CDP definition is not necessarily needed here
- Attribution for the 2010 census should be shortened to just "As of the 2010 census, North Potomac is located north..."
- List which direction each of these surrounding communities are in; this could also be merged with the next sentence's border descriptions
- "territory" is a bit off; would be better described as "land" or "areas"
- Merge the stream descriptions together without using "another" to describe one
- GNIS number, ANSI code, and coordinates are all unnecessary cruft here
Climate edit
- Define "close"; I think it would be better to just use Montgomery County or the greater Washington DC area here
- Changed to "According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, North Potomac has a..." since I had changed sources earlier. TwoScars (talk) 16:21, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
- "winters being" and "summers can be": choose whether these statements are definite or possible
Demographics edit
- Should clarify that 2018 uses an estimate, not an official census count
- "Latest" is already out-of-date; use "As of 2018 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau, North Potomac has a population of..."
- I suggest copying the data formatting from another CDP article (generated by bots), since they have far more than what is shown. The 2010 census data should be in its own subsection.
- The race links all redirect to the same article, so please unlink them and link "racial makeup" instead
- The Asian sentence is awkward, especially since it implies that multiple Korean ethnic groups are significant in the CDP. I would reword it as follows: "while Asian Indians and Koreans also have a significant presence."
- "compares favorably" is flowery; use "above average" instead
- Don't quote Niche's count, instead just say it was out of 15,000 places
- Quotation marks around the statements from Money are unnecessary
Government edit
- "Citizens of" should be dropped; a county council's boundaries are based on land with people, not individual persons
- Link to at-large
- I would drop the transition sentence before the Citizen's Association, as it doesn't add anything
- Instead of quoting the Citizen's Association's mission statement (which is not NPOV), describe their functions
- Explain the Citizen's Association's definition
- This section could be majorly expanded by explaining who provides basic services to North Potomac, such as EMS, policing, fire protection, garbage collection, sewer maintenance, water service, electricity, etc.
Economy edit
- "The data based on" can be dropped
- It's better to trim the listing here to just the top 3–5 categories and using shorter sector names.
- The largest employers should also be listed here alongside the sectors, if possible
- No list from reliable sources. Montgomery County has a list of all companies with 100 or more employees, but no location. I would have to break Wikipedia rules and conduct OR for each company, then select the largest in North Potomac -- if there are any with 100+ employees. The list does say that Shady Grove Hospital has over 1000 employees. TwoScars (talk) 21:39, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
- No need for the Biotech quote, the next sentence makes it self-explanatory
- The commute sentence should be rebuilt from scratch to be less guidebook-like:
- Link to Interstate 270, Shady Grove station, Metro, and Universities at Shady Grove on the first mention here instead of the following section
- "plus many more nearby" should be "and several others in the nearby area"
- The footnote is not necessary and violates WP:NOTGUIDE
- Exact square footage is not necessary
- Breakdown of revenues is not necessary here, just give a total retail figure
Transportation edit
- Comma needed after "to Interstate 270"
- North Potomac is repeated quite a lot in the Highways subsection; please reduce its use
- Missing period after Darnstown Road; the footnote is also a bit unnecessary
- The Interstate sentence is quite short and would work better with a colon to start a list
- Mention Ride-On outside of the footnote
- Individual bus routes do not need to be listed, even in the footnotes. I suggest using a system map as a better source instead of the WP:CITEOVERKILL.
Education edit
- School address footnote is still too long
- Football program does not need to be mentioned
- Dropped sentence.
- Individual elementary and middle schools do not need to be mentioned by name
Higher education edit
- "unique partnership" and "enables" are advert-like
- "close" → "near" (x2)
- " who can earn an associate degree or advance their education": Again, too promotional. Use "offering associate degrees and transfers to other institutions"
Public library edit
- Mention who operates the library
- When did the QO library open?
- Amenities and the bus stop are not necessary here
Recreation and wildlife edit
- The three sentences should be integrated into a "Parks and recreation" subheading with the Hiking trails/parks, instead of being left bare
- "on a path of 9 miles" would read better as "on a 9-mile route"
- "bikers" refers to motorcyclists, not cyclists
- Removed sentence that mentions bikers/cyclists. (As info, The Mid-Atlantic Off-Road Enthusiasts do not use the term "cyclists". They are mountain bikers—something different from cyclists that use roads.)
- The four-point list of other parks is not well integrated and could be dropped entirely
- The first two sentences of the last paragraph are unnecessary
- Missing period after Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park
- "630 acres located in the Darnestown CDP on River Road" needs to be rewritten
- The quote is unnecessary
Wildlife edit
- The gallery is unnecessary
- Upon second reading, I don't think this section is necessary at all. It belongs in the county article, especially since these apply to the area as a whole rather than being unique to North Potomac.
Footnotes edit
- Please trim these down or try to incorporate them into the prose. The Census Bureau footnotes are particularly long and not entire necessary for a single CDP, as they should described in a general article.
- Census Bureau footnotes were eliminated since they are duplicative, and the information can be found with the citation. TwoScars (talk) 16:46, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
- Most of the other footnotes have been shortened or incorporated into the prose. TwoScars (talk) 17:35, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
- Footnote 3 would be fairly easy to incorporate as an "According to state maps" statement
Citations edit
- Please add links to publishers and works/newspapers
- Not sure what is meant here—will put Wikilinks in first occurrence of cite news template.
- The Washington Post Wikilinked. TwoScars (talk) 15:59, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
- Washington Jewish Week Wikilinked. TwoScars (talk) 15:59, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
- Bethesda Magazine Wikilinked. TwoScars (talk) 15:59, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
- Money, Inc. Wikilinked. TwoScars (talk) 15:59, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
- U.S. News & World Report Wikilinked. TwoScars (talk) 15:59, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
- Not sure what is meant here—will put Wikilinks in first occurrence of cite news template.
- Citation 3 (HMDB) is not a reliable source
- Citations 6, 20, 64, and 65 (among others) do not need a separate publisher, since they share the same name as their respective newspapers
- Citation 7 doesn't seem to work. Please use a more specific link
- Citations 8, 15, and 87 are not an appropriate uses of using Google Maps
- Citations 27 and 43 (Patch) are not from a reliable source
- Citation 33 (Natural Atlas) is not from a reliable source
- Citation 35 needs to use {{cite gnis}} and does not need a footnote
- Citation 36 (Climtae-Data) is not from a reliable source
- Citation 44 should use {{cite map}}
- Far too many primary sources linking to the county government's website. Using local newspapers would be more appropriate here.
- There are no local print newspapers for North Potomac. The North Potomac - Darnestown Patch is "run by professional editors and salespeople", and it appears to be all on-line—that's it. The entire DC region reads the Washington Post and a few get the Wall Street Journal. There is also no local government other than the county. TwoScars (talk) 22:04, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Part 2 edit
- Citation 16 has the work and publisher switched around
- Citation 80: Facebook pages are never a reliable source
- Citation 89's publisher is in all caps
General comments edit
- As mentioned above, this article is lacking an Infrastructure section. I would move the transportation information into it as a subheading and also include subsections for Healthcare and Utilities (per the WP:USCITIES guide).
- No mention of public artwork, private arts organizations, or other culture? Surely there has to be something for the area.
- Not in North Potomac—only wildlife, parks, and trails—no museums (Travilah has one). Will search for museums nearby later. Hard to compete with Washington DC. TwoScars (talk) 20:58, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
- Closest museums, and a music and arts center, are listed in the new Arts section under Culture. TwoScars (talk) 20:29, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
I'll be back with more comments for the Historic places sections a bit later, but I will place this on hold for now. SounderBruce 09:45, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- Also, the active peer review request should be closed. I don't believe that articles are allowed to be at PR and GAN at the same time, but can't find the specific rule at this time. SounderBruce 09:46, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- Reading through now, the only real comment left is that the image captions are quite lacking. Other than that, I only have a few comments left for the Historic places section that I will post a bit later. SounderBruce 06:49, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
- I added to the captions. The Historic places section was fun for me to research, and I learned a lot. However, if you think it is too much history, I could make "Historic places" a subsection and have only two paragraphs with only one image. The DuFief Mill was pretty important, but the other sites are interesting but not necessarily essential to North Potomac—maybe one paragraph for DuFief and one paragraph for the other 3 sites. TwoScars (talk) 19:42, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
- @TwoScars: Your proposal for a shortened Historic places section would put this over the line. I think we can have this review wrapped up as soon as you do that. SounderBruce 07:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
- Made change to shortened Historic places. TwoScars (talk) 15:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
- @SounderBruce: Any other thoughts? Don't hesitate to say something needs changed—I plan to use North Potomac as a pattern for two other Maryland CDPs. TwoScars (talk) 20:30, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
- @TwoScars: Your proposal for a shortened Historic places section would put this over the line. I think we can have this review wrapped up as soon as you do that. SounderBruce 07:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
- I added to the captions. The Historic places section was fun for me to research, and I learned a lot. However, if you think it is too much history, I could make "Historic places" a subsection and have only two paragraphs with only one image. The DuFief Mill was pretty important, but the other sites are interesting but not necessarily essential to North Potomac—maybe one paragraph for DuFief and one paragraph for the other 3 sites. TwoScars (talk) 19:42, 14 June 2020 (UTC)