Talk:Lake Chad/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Simongraham (talk · contribs) 18:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

This looks an interesting piece of work and, as a Level 4 vital article, could be an asset to the list of Good articles. I will start a review shortly. simongraham (talk) 18:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

• I'm not the person who started this review, but I would like to point out that there are a few parts of this article that pretty clearly need a source, like Lake Chad is recorded in many Arabic writings from the 9th to the 14th centuries due to the expansion of Islam into sub-Saharan Africa and the increased Arab interest in geographical exploration. Reconrabbit 19:03, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Comments

• The article is of significant length, with 2,594 words of readable prose.
• The lead looks of an appropriate length, if a little short, at 156 words. It could be worth adding a summary, or at least a mention of one piece of salient information, from the first two paragraphs of the Development section.
• 78% of authorship is by Newbamboo. There are 127 other contributors.
• It is currently assessed as a C class article.
• Here are a few comments outside the strict GA criteria:
  • Suggest hyphenating compound adjectives like "depression-type" "graben-style", "low angle", "outward dipping".
  • In the species lists, there is no definite article. For example, I always thought it was "the steppe eagle". Please check.
  • The sections are uneven in length - if you would like to make them more even, suggest merging the Pre-history and History section and moving the hydrology data from the Geography section to Hydrology.

Assessment

The six good article criteria:

1. It is reasonable well written.

   the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct;

   • Reword "The Lake Chad located in the centre of the basin is the remnant of the Quaternary ancient Chad Sea"
   • Is "Hausa farming communities can often be found near the lake. The local economy is based primarily on fishing, subsistence and commercial agriculture, and animal husbandry, which are often combined" about the present? If it is, please move to the relevant section. If it is set in the past, please adjust the tense.
   • Either the noun or verb need to change for agreement in "top soil dry".
   • Remove "the" and add comma to "the Nigeria, Niger Chad and Cameroon"
   • Add comma before "where the population density exceeds 100 inhabitants per square kilometre"
   • I can see no other obvious spelling or grammar issues.
     • Excellent work. These are resolved. simongraham (talk) 21:30, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

   it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead, layout and word choice.

   • The layout is consistent with the relevant Manuals of Style, including a nice infobox.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   it contains a reference section, presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;

   • Leblanc et al 2006 is a reconstruction, and so to make the statements of facts in Prehistory should have a corroborating source.
   • The Roman history relies on two sources, both from the Ancient History Encyclopedia. A search of Scopus of the terms lake AND chad AND septimius AND flaccus yielded no results. Are there other credible sources that support the statement that Lake Chad is Septimius' Hippo and Rhino Lake?

   all inline citations are from reliable sources;

   • References seem credible, and a good mix between scholarly and non-scholarly sources.
   • Spot check confirms Gritzner 2019 and Sarch Birkett 2000 are relevant and discuss the topic.
   • WP:AGF for the offline sources.

   it contains no original research;

   • The document makes a number of unsourced statements. For example, Reconrabbit mentions "Lake Chad is recorded in many Arabic writings from the 9th to the 14th centuries due to the expansion of Islam into sub-Saharan Africa and the increased Arab interest in geographical exploration”.
   • The statement "The Chad Basin contains the earliest evidence of ancient human habitation found so far in West Africa" is unsourced and does not seem to be accurate. For example, see the articles Kintampo Complex and Nok culture.
   • Please clarify the statement "the Lake District became a refuge for tribes that refused to assimilate into these kingdoms". It lacks verification and is certainly disputable.
   • "The Lake Chad Basin is one of the major river basins most affected by climate change in the world." As well as a reword, this statement needs more justification and sourcing (there are plenty of articles that discuss this, and the broader implications of climate change, including Implications of climate variability and change for African lake ecosystems, fisheries productivity, and livelihoods.[[1]]
   • Use additional sources, such as Human and natural impacts on the water resources of the Lake Chad basin[[2]], Lake Chad: Ecology and Productivity[[3]] and Water and Food Sustainability in the Riparian Countries of Lake Chad in Africa.[[4]]
     • Excellent work.

   it contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism;

   • Earwig gives a 30.1% chance of copyright violation, which means that it is unlikely but worth looking into. The highest similarity is with Encyclopedia Britannica, which makes sense. Some sentences have close phrasing. For example:
   • "Evaporation and transpiration losses from soil and plants increase, and then they decrease as the top soil dry and plants lose their leaves, triggering intense dust storms."
   • "Evaporation and transpirational losses from soil and plants increase, and then they decrease as the surface layers of the soil dry and plants lose their leaves."
     • Earwig now gives a 24.2% chance, so unlikely. The similarities seem likely to be coincidences. For example, both use the subclause "The climate of the Lake Chad region is strongly influenced by" but the use of this construction feels weak evidence of plagiarism. simongraham (talk) 21:30, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

   It is broad in its coverage

   it addresses the main aspects of the topic.

   • Add more mention of the Chad basin and bit more on the relationship between the two, including, maybe an interesting comparative fact. For example, Christine Zuchora-Walske[[5]] mentions that the lowest part of the Lake Chad basin is not Lake Chad but the Djourab Depression.
   • The article lacks information on the pre-European cultures. For example, the Bornu Empire is only mentioned in the context of the arrival of Gustav Nachtigal. I suggest that looking at some of the some recent Africa-centric coverage of the Hausa and other of the area may be of use.
     • I have been looking into the challenges of finding sources for the prehistoric water levels and settlements up to the arrival of the Europeans. Here are a few sources you may want to look at (in addition to the ones I listed above):
       • The Exploitation of Wild and Domesticated Food Plants at Settlement Mounds in North-East Nigeria 1800 cal BC to Today[[6]]
       • Four Millennia of Cultural History in Nigeria (ca. 2000 B.C.–A.D. 1900): Archaeological Perspectives[[7]]
     • Here is a source for Julius Maternus: Africa: A History[[8]]

   it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

   • There is a good balance between breadth and depth.

3. It has a neutral point of view.

   it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to different points of view.

   • The text seems generally clear and neutral.

4. It is stable.

   it does not change significantly from day to day because of any ongoing edit war or content dispute.

   • There is no evidence of edit wars.

5. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   images are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content;

   • The infobox image has a relevant PD license.
   • The other images have appropriate PD or CC licenses.

   images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

   • All images either show views of or are a map of the lake.

@Newbamboo: Excellent work. Please take a look at more comments above and ping me when you would like me to take another look. simongraham (talk) 19:57, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

@Simongraham Hello, I have made corrections to the above-mentioned issues you pointed out. Please check them. Thank you. Newbamboo (talk) 13:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Newbamboo: This is outstanding work. A few responses above. Please also take a look at the lead as I feel needs extending to be a full summary of the article in line with MOS:LEADREL. simongraham (talk) 21:30, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Simongraham: Thank you, I apologize for not being able to respond to your feedback in a timely manner due to busy real life. I have just made some supplements to the article. Looking forward to your feedback. Newbamboo (talk) 15:28, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

@Newbamboo: Not a problem. Only a small number of things left:

• Please add trans-title to the non-English sources.
• Link Cal BC.
• Add the article "the" to "the Bornu Empire".
• Move the mentions of the Wadai Empire, and the Sultanate of Bagirmi to their relevant place in history (their formation was closer to the move of the locus of the Kanem to Ngazargamu and Bornu).
• Reword the sentence that starts "Gustav Nachtigal of Prussia" in light of the paragraph above (particularly "the rulers of the Bornu Empire on the shores of Lake Chad"), add dates (and sources), and remove the duplicate link. It may need to be split up to make it less like a list.
• Add a final sentence or two to that paragraph giving an overview of post-colonial history to bring the reader up to the modern context.
• Consider renaming "Development" to "Human activities".
• Remove the duplicate links for sorghum and maize.
• Mention somewhere in the body which countries border the lake. Aminu Bakari Buba[[9]] notes other countries have an interest in the lake too.

Thank you for all your work on this. Did you have any success with the sources I noted? simongraham (talk) 17:02, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

@Simongraham: Done, please check. Thank you. Newbamboo (talk) 13:23, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Due to slow internet speed and busy real life, I apologize for not being able to use some of the e-books you provided. Anyway, thank you very much. Newbamboo (talk) 14:03, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@Newbamboo: No problem. I have added an edit from one of them but there are many other good sources available. Shillington's book is available in English[[10]] so I suggest using this for the references. I have done some other minor edits, including adding a previous location map from the edit of 11 September 2023. simongraham (talk) 00:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@Simongraham: Thank you, I have just replaced it with the English version. Please check. Newbamboo (talk) 10:43, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@Newbamboo: Thank you for your work on this. I have a small number of amends and I now believe that this article meets the criteria to be a Good Article.

Pass simongraham (talk) 00:59, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.