Talk:Technical geography/GA2

GA Review

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Nominator: GeogSage (talk · contribs) 05:46, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 16:20, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I note that the GA1 review was largely complete and making good progress when the reviewer became unable to continue. The review essentially (and correctly) accepted the structure and content of the article, and would surely have passed it without much more work had it run to completion. I have therefore attempted not to duplicate the review effort already made.

Two citations have been removed as from a duff journal. They have been marked as "citation needed" and need attention.

Those missing citations concern 19th century notions of what "technical geography" was. We cannot safely assume that an 1860 mention of TG denoted the modern understanding of the term, not least because most of the modern statistical and computational techniques associated with it did not exist. What did the 1860 TG actually entail? I think this should briefly be glossed in the section.

The same consideration applies in 'Early history and etymology' where the mention of TG needs some critical (and sourced) discussion to avoid charges of WP:OR. In particular, how can we say that the "TG" of [7] Cave 1749 is the same in any useful sense as the TG of 2025? The use of [7] (a primary source) here, on its own, is concerning; does [32] Sitwell do anything to explicate the usage? (In contrast, and as illustration of the non-OR requirement, [34] Gee does exactly what is needed to validate Eratosthenes' claim to TG.)

Overall the article is a model of textual clarity, avoiding jargon and needless complexity. It is also a model of well-chosen illustration.

I am not sure that a list of 'Academic programs' is appropriate here; and it seems very US-centric. It would be better to have it as a stand-alone list article.

I am similarly doubtful about the list of 'Influential geographers'; this is lacking dates, which have a large effect on what we'd expect a geographer to be able to do. This too would be better stand-alone, though it evidently overlaps with List of geographers. The alternative would be to mention each person briefly in the section of this article (the topic) where they were pioneers.

I am doubtful about the relevance of the mammoth tusk and erdapfel images; the criterion for inclusion isn't their interest to Geography (not in doubt) but their claim to be (proto-)technical. If the T in TG isn't just decoration, it must mean that TG is a distinguishable subset of G, i.e. that the rest of the Venn diagram is out of scope.

The Tobler image should be |upright, and the caption should say how he is relevant to TG (with ref), summarizing the article text as needed.

The TR-1 recce aircraft image should similarly say why it is relevant here, especially as the plane is not even mentioned in the text.

As far as I can ascertain, the images are all on Commons, and suitably licensed.

The article is (barring the item above) fully cited to suitable sources, including journal articles, textbooks, and university web pages.

[2] Sala, [3] Tambassi, [12] Monmonier, [17] Journel Huijbregts, [21] Goodchild, [26] Gardiner Gardiner - possibly multiple (different) pages needed in each case.

[24] Mitchell, [29], [43] Bamford, [59] Baker, [60] DeLyser et al, [77] McElvaney, [83] Fotheringham et al, [91] Medina Hepner, [95] Peet, [105] Getis et al, [106] Dahlman Renwick, [112] Mark, [115] Stewart, [117] Lake et al, [153] Clarke - page(s) needed.

The text, structure, and illustrations are in good shape. Attention is needed to the appended lists, and to the multiple book sources that currently lack page numbers. There are some minor image issues as well.