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Willamette River edit

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it has passed its GA review and I want to know what could be improved in the article to get it ready for an FA nomination later on.

Thanks, Jsayre64 (talk) 22:44, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article recently underwent a significant section re-arrangement. A section called "20th and 21st centuries" was added. The "Big Pipe" section was removed and the information about the project was cut to one paragraph. Feel free to comment about this here or on the article's talk page. Jsayre64 (talk) 01:27, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Chipmunkdavis

Good to see a tributary of a FA river approaching the same status.

Lead
  • For international readers it would be good to write that Oregon is a state of the USA in the text when it first appears.
  • I believe the text already says it is in the United States. Jsayre64 (talk) 12:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clarify why it is a "major tributary". I assume it is because of the percentage of water in the river from it.
  • I added a statistic that appears later in the article; it contributes to 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. Jsayre64 (talk) 12:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are there more than one species of salmon or trout in the river? Perhaps amend to "including many species of salmon and trout" or something similar, otherwise to me it implies a single species, which I'd then want to be specified.
  •   Done With "including many species of salmon and trout." Jsayre64 (talk) 12:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Course
  • "The Willamette rises in three separate forks in the mountains south and southeast of Eugene, at the southern end of the Willamette Valley." There are a few problems with this sentence. Saying "the Williamette rises" doesn't sound that clear to me. I assume it means that three springs form it. Also clarify what you mean by a fork. I initially read it as pertaining to the mountain, rather than the river. It would also be useful to state what Eugene is, although in the infobox, it has not appeared in the text yet, I'd wikilink it (don't think it's an overlink as it hasn't appeared in prose yet, and this is the start of the article proper anyway). I also unsure if this is the best way to start a section. I assume that a river starts from a single source and ends at a mouth, all other sources being tributaries. How can it rise from three sources? From what I gather from following wikilinks it appears that the river only starts at the confluence of the forks, rather than at a single source. This should be clear to the reader just from the text, they should not have to follow wikilinks.
Agreed. I've replaced the opening sentences with "The upper tributaries of the Willamette originate in mountains south and southeast of Eugene and Springfield. Formed by the confluence of the Middle Fork Willamette River and Coast Fork Willamette River near Springfield, the main stem meanders generally north for 187 miles (301 km) to the Columbia." Finetooth (talk) 18:21, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Make sure using a look at a map is reliable enough to create a list of nearby areas. It may be. If it is, don't worry about it.
The two cited maps support the claims. Finetooth (talk) 18:47, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • In Discharge, I'm unclear why exactly August and December were chosen to specifically mention. I would expect months half a year apart to be the most different.
  • USGS data shows that the Willamette's flow is least in August and greatest in December, so I added a note about that. Jsayre64 (talk) 13:20, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Watershed
  • Instead of "of the state" say "of Oregon".
  • Instead of saying "The largest by far is Portland", give how far or remove the term "by far" and just give the largest.
  • "36 percent is public" should probably be changed to "36 percent is open to the public" or "36 percent is government owned". "36 percent is public" just sounds like bad prose to me.
Agreed. I changed "public" to "publicly owned". Finetooth (talk) 17:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does the note it is an American Heritage River belong in this section?
Yes. The designation is a kind of shorthand for the river system or watershed. I altered the sentence to make this more clear. Finetooth (talk) 18:39, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • State that Bill Clinton is a "former President" or "then-President" or something similar.
Added "former". Finetooth (talk) 17:54, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Flora and Fauna
  • "Although much more extensive in the 19th century, the remaining forests close to the river include large stands of black cottonwood, Oregon ash, willow, and bigleaf maple." The two parts of these sentences seem unrelated, and thus should probably not be in the same sentence.
Thanks. A couple of editors have noticed something odd or missing from this sentence. I added some elaboration, including statistics, citing Benke and Cushing. The loss of riparian zone vegetation has been very large, and its effect on the river probably under-appreciated. Add enough tree-chopping to dam building, channel straightening, gravel digging, and polluting, and you can turn most any productive wild river into something like a warm, stinky canal. Riparian zone restoration can help reverse the damage to some degree. End of sermon. Finetooth (talk) 16:56, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is it worth rearranging this section slightly to group information on endangered/threatened species with protected areas? Combine the end of the second paragraph with the last and merge the rest of the second with the third, and there will be three solid paragraphs.
Good idea and done. I also added two sentences about contemporary rebounds in the osprey and beaver populations. Finetooth (talk) 17:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Geology
  • This is quite a solid section. Linking CE is an overlink, and I'm unsure whether the quote is better included than paraphrased, but the section comes across as understandable and well-structured.
Thanks. I always enjoy working on the geology, which I find fascinating. I have unlinked "CE"; it may be common enough that readers expecting BC or AD don't find it puzzling. For the nonce at least I left the quotes around the big flow claim because it might strike readers as preposterous, some sort of typo or mistaken reading of the original. Finetooth (talk) 17:44, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
History
  • I personally aren't fond of the title "Native inhabitants". All people in the area must have come from somewhere else at some point. Anyway, that aside, it's not a very historical title.

Something such as "Prior to European arrival" or "First inhabitants" seems to relate better.

  • Well, they are the Native Americans, but that's fine with me. "Prior to European arrival" sounds ethno-centric, so I chose "First inhabitants." Jsayre64 (talk) 18:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • When discussing these North American tribes, what is meant by "Group"? Does it relate to family groups, or perhaps villages? The additional information on "subgroups" just makes this less clear to me :/ More context would help, and wikilinks if they exist.
  • "The name of the river is also of indigenous origin" Does this refer to the Willamette River? Specify. Additionally, the current location of this information doesn't make sense to me. I'd expect it to find it near information about when whoever it was that was French went there.
  • Specify William Robert Broughton was British.
  • Saying that "fur trappers...descended on rivers, streams and coastlines" sounds unencyclopaedic and rather pointless. Just as much information is conveyed by "fur trappers...hunted for beavers and otters."
  • Some information in brackets here is probably not helpful for this article. Information that a couple of fur trading companies later merged, or that the Siskiyou Trail has an alternative name seem rather tangential.
  • What does it mean to "create" a trail anyway?
  • I changed "created" to "established." That should be more clear. Jsayre64 (talk) 14:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • A single paragraph subsection (exploration) seems strange. Perhaps just combine with the next subsection and call it "exploration and development" or something similar?
  • I merged the section into the larger "19th-century development" section, as it talks about 19th-century events, anyway. Jsayre64 (talk) 14:39, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • What does it mean that Oregon city was "incorporated"? I assume that if I knew that it would explain what is meant by it having a distinction.
  • That's a common term used for cities. Incorporated establishments have their own form of government. Jsayre64 (talk) 14:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is the word "however" used when it is stated the loch system is still used?
  • "cut the length of the river by 65 percent between the McKenzie River confluence and Harrisburg" is ambiguous, it initially read to me that the whole river length was cut 65 percent by cutting in the stretch mentioned.
  • Information about pollution in the year 2000 seems out of place in a section on the 19th century.
  •   Done I agree. I moved it to the "pollution" section and reworded it a bit. Jsayre64 (talk) 14:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • What does the phrase "coast west of the valley" mean?
  • I suppose it's used simply to indicate that the Oregon Coast is west of the Willamette Valley. It's unneeded, though, so I removed it. Jsayre64 (talk) 14:39, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The flooding section location and structure requires some thought. First of all, some of it doesn't seem to read as hitorical. Secondly, although the first part of a section labelled 20th century history, it goes back to about the mid 19th.
  • Try to reduce the number of short paragraphs.
  • I don't recall anyone specifically trying to address this issue, but it looks better now. Perhaps it was fixed during the big section re-arrangement. Jsayre64 (talk) 01:30, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • A note about Northern California's rivers being high doesn't seem relevant at all to this. Just note the greater weather event.
  • Pollution similarly goes back beyond the 20th century, and also goes into the 21st. I think it's well worth considering just pulling flooding and pollution out of History, and just set them up as their own sections. It would make structuring very much easier.
  • The third paragraph of the current pollution section is written in a strange tense.
  • Can you explain? I don't see anything wrong with it. Jsayre64 (talk) 01:27, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The big pipe section sounds like it would be better placed under the Engineering section.
Engineering
  • "relatively heavily modified for its size" is a highly ambiguous statement. All I can read into that is that the flow has been modified. Simplify or clarify.
  • The second sentence starts with the clear statement "there are no major dams" which is then immediately countered by a bracket saying that there actually is a major dam. Wouldn't it be better to simply write that there is only one major dam?
Bridges
  • Decent summaries of various bridges here. Good section, good panorama. I would only suggest placing the whole thing into an upriver --> downriver order, which it already seems to basically be in.
Agreed. Actually, all of them are already arranged in that order. Finetooth (talk) 18:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would bridged be considered as engineering?
Yes. We could make "Bridges" a subsection of "Engineering". I have no strong opinion about this, but Jsayre64 or Shannon1, the other main contributors, might. Finetooth (talk) 18:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All in all, a nice and well referenced article. The main problem is what is currently under the 20th century subheader of History. It seems ill-planned and out of place. In the same vein, make sure that there are no short paragraphs, common in those sections. Sourcing looks good from a quick spotcheck. I have this page watchlisted, so if there's any questions on your part or something I said needs clarification, just ask here. Good luck with FA, Chipmunkdavis (talk) 00:21, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, thanks for your feedback! I'll start addressing these issues soon. Jsayre64 (talk) 12:41, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just wanted to add, Chipmunkdavis, that this is a most helpful review. Thank you for taking the time to do this. Finetooth (talk) 19:07, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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