Wikipedia:Peer review/Manitoba/archive1

Manitoba

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it passed GA a while ago and I'm looking for some suggestions to (hopefully) get it to FAC sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Thanks, Nikkimaria (talk) 03:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Mindmatrix

I think that the list of hospitals is misplaced (link at top of "Economy" section). Perhaps a public services section could be created, highlighting health care, education etc. In my opinion, there is undue weight given to the official languages and armed forces sections. The latter may warrant a CAF presence by province article, splitting that section off as appropriate and leaving only a short section paragraph in its place. I also think the education section is weak - there's no mention of student demographics, number of schools or their sizes, role of private schooling, etc. (Aside: I don't like the phrase "the provincial education system" linking to Minister of Education, Citizenship and Youth (Manitoba).) The intro needs work, especially the second and third paragraphs. Mindmatrix 16:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

One more thing: there's a History of Manitoba that could benefit from some of the material at Manitoba#History. The main article's history section is far too long, and portions of it should be merged to the more specific article. Mindmatrix 16:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Mindmatrix. I've shrunk the official languages and armed forces slightly. Language in particular has been a big issue in Manitoba, so I would argue that it merits some weight here. I've also worked on adding some details to education and fixing the lead. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 21:33, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Steve Smith

This is not the sort of article I generally write/review (historical political biography), so I'm slightly outside my comfort zone, but I think I can make some useful comments. Because of my general lack of familiarity with this type of article, I've identified three current featured articles that I think are comparable in subject matter: Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Virginia. I'm letting those articles inform my thoughts on this one.

In general, I think this article needs improvement before it hits FAC, though there's obviously been enormous amounts of good work put into it so far (this is a tough kind of article to write, which is why I generally stick to biography). Many parts of the article emphasize listing facts rather than incorporating them into the kind of prose I'd expect of an FA

I've responded in-line, hope you don't mind. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:45, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Organization and other high level stuff

• The lead is too short, leaves out many important pieces of information (for example, the only thing said about the history is the date it entered Confederation), and contains other information that probably doesn't belong there (that the BNA Act, 1867 was rechristened the Constitution Act, 1867, could not possibly be one of the things about Manitoba that it's more important for a reader to know).

I've expanded it slightly and taken out the bit about the renaming, but I agree it still needs work.

• The Geography section could stand to be better organized. All of the non-climate physical geography is found under the main heading, and information about human geography is limited to a single table listing the largest cities. I'd suggest emulating the state articles, and dividing it into "Geology and terrain/Topography" (possibly with a subsection for Hydrography, if you think it's warranted), "Climate", "Flora and fauna" (a subject not currently covered in the article), and "Human geography". These are only suggestions, obviously, and there are any number of legitimate ways that this section could be re-organized. Though the presence of a link to List of Manitoba parks is well-taken, I think they also merit mention in this main article.

"Human geography" is mostly covered under "Demographics", so I've put the table there. The other subsections are now in place, and I'll be working on tweaking the "Flora and fauna" section.

• I'm inclined to agree with Mindmatrix that history is relatively over-emphasized, and I find some of the choices of what to include and exclude a little strange. In the last two subsections, political and especially electoral history seem slightly overrepresented. I also think that Manitoba's role in scuttling Meech Lake could stand to be trimmed. More could be said about the Great Depression; right now all that's mentioned is that it produced the Manitoba Social Credit Party and the Manitoba CCF, the former of which I don't think is important enough to be mentioned in a survey article about the entire province. Information about economic history is sorely lacking; while there's a subsection devoted to it later on (I think it should be integrated into "History" rather than "Economy", but that's subjective), it only goes up to 1853; I'd like to see information about the history of agriculture in Manitoba, for example. I don't know a great deal about Manitoba's history (and what I do know is mostly on the political side), so I don't have much more in the way of specific suggestions, but I hope that general stuff is helpful.

I've shrunk history somewhat, added more details about the Depression and economic history (although I've left that as a subsection of economy for now...might change it later), and refocused the last couple of subsections.

• I'm not sure "religion" merits its own subsection, since the article doesn't have a great deal to say on the subject, and it's not as though the "Demographics" section is long enough to require extensive subdivision. I'd like to see some information about language here, especially given what we learn in the "History" section about Louis Riel, the Manitoba Schools Question (which was nominally about religion, but which was closely tied to language), etc. There's a brief mention of the concentration of the population in Winnipeg, but little further about urbanization, etc. This might also be a good place to include a paragraph about the current condition of aboriginals in Manitoba. In contrast to "History", I think "Demography" needs expansion (I think Virginia does this especially well).

Religion is now incorporated into the main section text, and urbanization and aboriginal population have been briefly addressed.

• "Transportation" is fundamentally sound (I'll have some nitpicks when I get to that part of the review, but I don't think it needs to be overhauled).
• "Economy" does a good job of explaining the components of Manitoba's economy, but there's all sorts of data that should be included. How prosperous is Manitoba relative to other parts of Canada? What are the typical unemployment rates? Does reliance on agriculture make for an especially cyclical economy? What is the typical approach of government to the economy? In light of the 1919 strike and the strength of the NDP, what's the state of organized labour in Manitoba? As noted earlier, I think "Economic history" should be integrated into "History", especially given the redundancy currently in there (especially surrounding the fur trade, etc.)

I've tried to add some more data about economic conditions in Manitoba, and removed some of the redundancies in the history.

• "Government"'s not too bad (though what's with that single sentence about MERLIN tacked on to the end of it?), I'd like to see more about the "politics" (possibly in a separate section, if you'd rather not mix politics and government): the three main parties are listed, but we're not told much else about them. Does Manitoba change governments often (more often than Alberta, at least)? What issues dominate politics there? What role does Manitoba play in federal politics? A little bit (a small-ish paragraph?) about the law of Manitoba might also be good, just briefly describing the court system to go along with the descriptions of the legislative and executive branches already in there. There should also be something about municipal government. I'm also wondering if the bit about official languages isn't a little over-emphasized, and wouldn't be better dealt with in a section of Demography devoted to language in general. Finally, I have to note that the article's somewhat inaccurate in its description of the Westminster system ("The executive branch is formed by the majority party").

MERLIN removed and three main parties described in more detail (along with some political history). I've also added some details about the judiciary.

• "Education"'s pretty good, though I'd like to see something about how schools are organized (are there school districts? How autonomous are they?) and maybe something about how educated Manitobans are relative to national averages.

School districts have been added, but I haven't yet found an objective ruling on education levels...I'll keep looking for that.

• "Sports" is generally fine. In light of its brevity (which I think is appropriate), I might suggest incorporating it into a new "Culture" section (information on non-sport culture is conspicuously absent from the article), though I note that both Oklahoma and Virginia keep their "Sports" sections separate from their "Culture" ones. Minnesota takes a different approach, combining its "Sports" section with one about outdoor recreation in the province (I assume that outdoor recreation is big in Manitoba, since it has so much outdoors).

I've added a Culture section, but opted to keep it separate from sports

• "Armed Forces" is good. I'd almost suggest incorporating it as a subsection of "Economy", since the importance of the Armed Forces to Manitoba specifically seems to be primarily economic (broadly defined).

Ummm...maybe. For now I've left it separate.

• Besides culture (definitely) and outdoor recreation (maybe), all three state articles include sections about health, media, and state symbols. The only one of those that I think absolutely must be included is media, and it could be incorporated into a culture section. Provincial symbols are adequately dealt with in the infobox, I think, and unless you can think of something to say beyond what they are I'd advise not creating such a section. Health could be created, or some health-related information could be added to "Demographics".

Media has been added as a subsection of Culture

I'll have more to say later about things like referencing and prose, and pictures/visual layout, but I thought I'd start with the big stuff. I hope it was helpful. Steve Smith (talk) 22:01, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Referencing

I'm of two minds on the referencing. On the one hand, the article seems to break a lot of Wikipedia's policies on the matter, relying as it does extensively on primary sources. I'm a firm believer in using secondary sources, because they're able not only to verify facts, but also to frame these facts in a meaningful way and allow us to assess relative importance of various facts and views, and this article doesn't do that.

On the other hand, this is an extremely broad topic, which makes high quality secondary sources dealing with the entire subject rare (what scholar publishes an academic paper on Manitoba as a whole)? Moreover, in this broad an article, framing facts is often of less importance than providing them, which makes reliance on primary sources somewhat more acceptable. Finally, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Virginia all make more extensive use of primary sources than I would expect a featured article to do, which suggests to me that this is an accepted approach to this sort of article. All sources do seem to be reliable for the claims they support.

Even so, I'd encourage the use of secondary sources independent of the subject wherever possible, and especially in cases where the facts are something other than indisputable statistics. Steve Smith (talk) 02:02, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Images and graphic layout

Not much to complain about here. Image choices range from good to excellent, and those that are not free seem to come with adequate fair use rationales (though the one in File:G manitoba.gif could use some beefing up). A couple of specific concerns:

• File:Carberrydesert.jpg could use more information (author, date, description, etc.)
• Likewise File:Winnipeg skyline from 55 Nassau.jpg
• Also File:Parliamentwinnipeg manitoba.jpg

I'm also wondering if it would be possible to have text wrap around some of the thinner tables, as occurs in (for example) the "Demographics" section of Virginia; some of the tables currently disrupt the text a little. Alt text isn't really my forte, but what's in there seems pretty good to me. Does Template:Infobox province or territory of Canada not support it yet? Steve Smith (talk) 02:02, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Prose

I'm going through and doing some prose tightening; feel free to revert anything that you feel diminishes the article. I'm concerned that even with my edits the prose still needs a lot of work; flow is often lacking, and redundancy abounds. Some specific points:

• "Manitoba's capital and largest city, Winnipeg, is also Canada's eighth-largest Census Metropolitan Area, and has Canada's seventh-largest municipality." Manitoba is the municipality, no?

No, part of Winnipeg is the municipality. Manitoba is the province, Winnipeg is the city, but for StatsCan, it is simultaneously a CMA, a city and a municipality, only counting different parts.

• Also, the second part of that sentence doesn't seem to be in the article's body.
• I'm still not sold on the lead; I think it gives too much emphasis to some points (the founding of the NDP, for example) and leaves out some others. Given the length of the article, it could probably be expanded to better summarize the article.

Agreed

• Besides that, some of the sentences in the lead are exactly like sentences from elsewhere in the article, which shouldn't be the case.
• "The province has the largest saltwater coastline bordering Hudson Bay" - I read this to mean that its Hudson Bay coastline is longer than any of Ontario's, Quebec's, or Nunavut's. Is that the intended meaning?

I'm not quite sure, but I'll find out.

• Can you wikilink "watershed"? I'd do it myself, but I'm not clear on which meaning is intended.

Will do

• "Many uninhabited islands can be found along the shores of this lake." The islands are along the shore?

Yes, but that's not clearly worded...the islands are spread out near the shore (as opposed to in the middle of the lake)

• "The most common type of farm found in rural areas is cattle farming (34.6%),[14] followed by other grains (19.0%)" Grains other than cattle?

"Other grains" here refers to a grouping of assorted grains not covered by "wheat" and other prominent crops. Since it's unclear, I'll find a way to word it better.

More later.