Talk:Willamette River/GA1

GA Review

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GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
Formatting and MOS issues look fine. See below for a few prose issues.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
See below.
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
See below for expanded comments
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
I can spot no problems at the moment, will probably do a re-check before finishing the review to be sure
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Reviewer: A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is my first GA review, so right off let me do two things: first, warn you that I may be a bit slow (it's a long article and I plan to chip away at evaluating it against the criteria up there over the next day or two) and second, let you know that I've asked Courcelles (talk · contribs) and Ironholds (talk · contribs), both experienced reviewers, to check my work here as I go and fill in any gaps I leave, so you'll probably be seeing one or both of them pop in to offer thoughts on both the article and my evaluation of it.

Issues for item 3, coverage

There's a gap at the end of the history section; you leap from 19th-century development directly to a new heading about flooding. I assume there was development in the area between 1900 and 2011; this more recent history should be described.
I'd like to see a bit more expansion on the Big Pipe section if there are sources available to you on, say, its impact and public reactions to the pipe.
My overall feeling after reading the article is that it seems to overly-expand on some details (for instance, discussing the history of tribes in the area - I can definitely see why they're relevant to the topic, but you could probably cut down the prose relating to them by taking a stricter is-this-related-to-the-tribes-AND-the-river? view). That said, I think this impression may be helped along because the organization of the article is jumpy, and connections aren't always as clear as they could be. Would you be willing to consider re-organizing the topic headings into a more logical order? One suggestion would be to group it by topic area. So (Course, Watershed, Geology, Flora & Fauna) seem to go together more naturally to me, followed by History, Flooding, and then (Engineering, Bridges, Pollution). Alternatively, (Engineering, Bridges, Pollution) may be able to fit under History as sub-headings, as they seem to essentially be the more recent history of the river.

A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I understand what you're saying about the sections. When I read the "pollution" section, it sounded a lot like the 20th-century history of the river. I agree that the first three level-2 sections seem to work well. I also think that the "flooding" section and the whole "pollution" section could be integrated under the "history" section. We could cut back on some of the detail that the "history" section has now. That leaves "engineering," "flora and fauna," and "bridges," all which could be level-2 sections at the end. But I'm sure at least Finetooth and Shannon1 have some thoughts about this, so I'm not going to do anything major quite yet. Jsayre64 (talk) 13:29, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I think flooding and pollution should be under its own 20th-century header, if they're to be modified at all, and dams and bridges should go together as subsections in another large section. Ecology should be left by itself, preferably put near watershed. Shannon ⁺º ^! 17:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So you mean something like this? I support this kind of a format:

Course

Discharge

Watershed
Flora and fauna
Geology
History

Native inhabitants
Fur trade
Explorers
19th-century development
20th-century development

Flooding
Pollution

Big Pipe

Engineering
Bridges

--Jsayre64 (talk) 18:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike the "pollution" section, the "engineering" section and the "bridges" section really don't sound like history when I read them. Shannon, you said those sections should be within a separate large section. What would that section be? Jsayre64 (talk) 18:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've been thinking about what to shorten in the history section, and what strikes me is the second-to-last paragraph in the "19th-century development" section. It has very little to do with the river itself. Should we remove this paragraph? Jsayre64 (talk) 20:16, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Issues related to item 2, sourcing

The article is generally well- and abundantly-sourced. Reference formatting looks ok. A few specific issues that came up on my read-through:

Course

"Arising at 438 feet (134 m) above sea level, the main stem loses 428 feet (130 m) in elevation between source and mouth, or about 2.3 feet per mile (1.1 m per km)." is sourced to http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=gnispq:3:1252850785191942::NO::P3_FID:1158060. It's entirely possible that I'm just misreading the page, because elevations and maps aren't something I'm terribly familiar with, but I don't see that information contained in the sourced page.

You're right that the GNIS page doesn't explicitly say that, but if you look closely, there's a note in the citation saying that the elevations were found with Google Earth using the coordinates provided by the GNIS page. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"With an average flow at the mouth of about 32,400 cubic feet per second (920 m3/s), the Willamette ranks 19th in volume among U.S. rivers" is sourced to http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1987/ofr87-242/, which appears to say that the number is actually 37,400 cubic feet/s

Nice catch. I fixed it. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Watershed

"This amounted to about 70 percent of the total population of the state." is sourced to http://www.willamette-riverkeeper.org/WRK/physicalcharacter.html. This feels a bit hinky to me - not enough that I would demand the source be changed, but enough that I'd like to see if you can clean it up a little. The Riverkeeper does not appear to be a true source of statistics so much as an environmental activist organisation, and they don't cite *their* source for the 70% figure (and in either case, they say "upwards of 70%", not "70%"). Is there any way you can track down the source of the Riverkeeper's numbers and use that instead?

I Googled "70 percent oregon population willamette", and I found a USGS document that also mentioned that statistic. I replaced the original citation with that. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:36, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Geology

No issues

History

"In the last few hundred years before white people settled the region, the Kalapuya numbered about 3,000 and were distributed among several groups. These figures are only speculative; there may have been as few as eight subgroups or as many as 16." Though I understand the phrasing you were going for, the second sentence essentially contradicts the first sentence here. It would probably reflect the source better to say something along the lines of "Though exact populations numbers are only speculative, it is believed that the Kalapuya numbered about 3,000 and were distributed among as many as 16 subgroups or 8." Doesn't have to be that wording, of course, since I don't have access to the source to make it correct, but please make clear that the sources do not directly support the 3,000 number (if, as my interpretation of the passage says, they don't).

I corrected some of that according to what the referenced book said. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly, "The Chinook population was estimated at nearly 5,000,[36] although this is not an accurate measure of how many lived on the Willamette." could possibly be rephrased more accurately as "The Chinook population was estimated at nearly 5,000, though not all of this number lived on the Willamette."

Done, although slightly differently. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"By the late 1850s, most of the available fertile land had been appropriated by farmers." is sourced to http://www.opb.org/programs/oregonstory/farming/timeline.html. "Appropriated" is probably not the most neutral word here, given that the source doesn't use it. Perhaps a less-loaded synonym?

I replaced this with: "By the late 1850s, farmers had begun to grow crops on most of the available fertile land." Jsayre64 (talk) 00:27, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"By the 20th century, the Willamette River was ranked as one of the most polluted waterways in Oregon." is sourced to http://www.willamette-riverkeeper.org/river1.htm, which is a deadlink (404) which appears a few times throughout the article, and http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/040800-03.htm, which is a third-party (activist) website reproducing a news article published elsewhere. If possible, please track down a link to the actual LA Times story, as the newspaper itself is a much more reliable source of what the article said than a third-party site that appears to have re-typed the article. The wording of the sentence also strikes me as a bit iffy - what the source article actually says is that the river may be (at the time the article was published) listed as a superfund, not that it was ranked as one of the state's most polluted waterways. The article does equate "superfund" and "America's most polluted places", so I don't feel strongly that you're drawing a false conclusion here or anything, but I think you're overreaching your conclusion a *tad*.

I found the original LA Times article here and replaced the other reference rewording it, I removed the dead-link reference (as it seems to serve no real purpose anyway), and I changed the wording to: "By the year 2000, the Willamette River in Portland had become so polluted by sewage and industrial waste that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested cleanup along a 5.5-mile (8.9 km) stretch of the river." Jsayre64 (talk) 00:27, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Joel Palmer, a pioneer and legislator of the Oregon government, who had been involved with driving out the Umpqua and Rogue peoples, later forced tribes of the Willamette Valley to sign a treaty that transferred 7,500,000 acres (30,400 km2) of their land to the United States government for $200,000." is sourced to one offline source, to which I obviously don't have access, and http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/kalapuya_treaty/. The latter source says nothing about the tribe being forced, coerced, or otherwise strongarmed into signing the treaty. If the offline source supports this view, that's fine (and anyway, I don't doubt that the treaty signing probably was not exactly, shall we say, at the tribe's behest), but if it doesn't directly support it, please be very careful about inserting "known" things into sentences sourced to places that don't discuss those "known" things.

You can actually find the book reference with the cited information right here, thanks to Google Books, and as you can see, it verifies the claim that Palmer had forced the Willamette Valley tribes off their land. Jsayre64 (talk) 00:27, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Flooding

No issues

Engineering

No issues

Flora and fauna

No sourcing issues. Suggest, in the interests of broadening the article a smidge, that you include in this section some discussion of any endangered flora and fauna in the region (the pollution section hinted at there being some) and any conservation efforts being made toward them.

I expanded it a bit. Jsayre64 (talk) 18:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pollution

"The city has embarked on expanding the sewerage system to minimize these events, through construction of the Big Pipe Project, part of the river renaissance project." This is unsourced and "river renaissance project" is a redlink. I would suggest either a source for the statement which gives detail about the project, or adding a source and another sentence or two explaining what the project is.

I added a reference to this page to verify the claim. Jsayre64 (talk) 14:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Further upstream, however, the Willamette is not heavily polluted and is used by communities, such as the City of Tigard, for drinking water. The major contaminants are from agricultural runoff." For the first sentence, I'm sure you can easily source that Tigard uses the river for its water, and it might not hurt to do so. For the second sentence, some context is required - major contaminants upstream as opposed to downstream? major contaminents in Tigard? major contaminents in the river as a whole?

I added a source that said that Tigard and Lake Oswego draw water from the Willamette. I removed the second sentence because I couldn't find a source for it. Jsayre64 (talk) 14:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The project consists primarily of two large pipes on either side of the river." What do the pipes do? Divert sewage? Provide a route for flood water to run off? This section never actually quite says.

It gives a description: "The eastside pipe, serving a much larger segment of population, is 22 feet (6.7 m) wide and will be able to hold more than 83,000,000 US gallons (310,000,000 L) of storm water and sewage. Together the pipes and other CSO projects will provide a 94 percent reduction in CSO volume, dramatically reducing one of the largest pollutants of the Willamette River." Jsayre64 (talk) 14:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This may be a case of the meaning being clear to someone familiar with the topic but not to an outsider. Yes, I'm getting from the section that the pipes are doing something with holding storm water and sewage. What's not clear is what it's doing with them. It's piping them somewhere where they do less damage? Piping them to a treatment plant of some kind? Always, or only when there's storm runoff? Basically, I think you need to expand the section with a clearer explanation of what the Big Pipe is intended to do, functionally, not just what it's intended to do, pollution-wise. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:39, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I hope this edit I made was an improvement. Are you satisfied, or do I need to do some more work on this section? Jsayre64 (talk) 01:37, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That looks about right. You could certainly expand a bit more if you want, but your change gives me the info I felt I was lacking as a reader. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:42, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bridges

"The 50 or so crossings of the Willamette River include many historic structures, such as Oregon's oldest swing bridge, the Van Buren Street Bridge." Is this supported by one of the two sources further on in the paragraph? It might help (or just be excessive, hmmm...) to duplicate the source nearby for a comparitive statement like "the oldest".

I removed "oldest," because I can't find a source for it, and I reworded the sentence. Jsayre64 (talk) 18:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clarity question: What does the RM/RK notation represent? Was this defined earlier and I'm just getting punchy and have forgotten? If it hasn't been explained, it might be helpful to explain it before you start using it.

It's "river mile/river kilometer," measuring the distance between a point on the river and the river's mouth. This is very commonly used in other river articles. Jsayre64 (talk) 18:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, I finally spotted where it's linked earlier in the article. Must have missed it the first time through. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:54, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And that's it for the sourcing. Stay tuned for the tomorrow's episode of Exciting GA Reviews about Rivers, when Fluffernutter will deal with any and all prose issues! A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 22:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Prose issues

Very few issues here. The writing is clear and wonderfully grammatical (I say this as someone who spends far too much free time copyediting articles!). The few bobbles I noted while wearing my grammar-police hat:

Under "Fur Trade": "...there was even a specific term for the Willamette area known as the 'Willamette River fur trade'". The specific term was "Wilamette River fur trade", or there's a name for the area which is known as the fur trade? Presumably the former, but this is phrased awkwardly, seeming to equate "area" and "trade". Perhaps something more like "the Wilamette area was even referred to simply as 'the Wilamette River fur trade' [on the presumption that there was little else there other than the fur trade, or whatever the explanation is, if there is one]."
Under "Exploration": "As the expedition traveled down and back up the Columbia River, it entirely missed the mouth of the Willamette, despite that the Willamette is one of the Columbia's largest tributaries." "Despite that" isn't a standard phrasing. Go for "despite the fact that" or, even better, "despite the Wilamette being one of the..."
- (Actually, I see "despite that" used a few times in the article. Please consider rephrasing each instance.)
Under "19th-century development": "Oregon City prospered because of the paper mills that were run by the water power of Willamette Falls, which, unfortunately to the economic development of the area" should be "unfortunately for", I believe.
Also under 19-century: "Palmer, later criticized for bringing unnecessary risk to white settlers by angering the Native Americans and often unlawful treatment of the natives, was removed from the legislature in 1856." The "and" here is awkward. I think you were trying to join "bringing risk" and "unlawful treatment" together as "things he was criticized for", but because they're not parallel, syntactically, it comes out a bit garbled. You could tweak it a bit to make it clearer by making it "for his often unlawful treatment...".
Under "Flooding": "About 15 people had died as a result of the flooding and about 8,000 Oregonians were forced to evacuate their homes in search of other shelter." The past-perfect tense of "had died" here is out of place; the rest of the paragraph uses the simple past tense. Unless you intend to put the dead people's time in opposition to one of the other events in the paragraph ("by the time Johnson ordered aid, 15 people had died" or the like), it should be "15 people died", not "15 people had died." Ditto "The river had receded to 29.8 feet (9.1 m), which was nearly 12 feet (3.7 m) above flood stage, on December 27." a few sentences later.

Everything else looks good! A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:39, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to hear! Did this edit resolve the issues that you found, though? Jsayre64 (talk) 16:45, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, looks like you got everything. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:05, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

"its tributaries form a basin called the Willamette Valley" There's almost always a better way to phrase something than using the "called the" sentence construction.

Done Changed to "… the river and its tributaries form the Willamette Valley, a basin that contains two-thirds of Oregon's population…" --Jsayre64 (talk) 20:19, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a link to the article on the Columbia River in the lede, or anywhere else, though I admit I might have missed it in the body farther down. Should be one in the lede.

Yes. Good catch. Repaired by Jsayre64 as noted below. Finetooth (talk) 20:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"which contains two-thirds of Oregon's population,[7] " Why only one citation in the lede? We generally prefer none, per WP:LEADCITE.

Repaired by Jsayre64 as noted below. Finetooth (talk) 20:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"cross it on one or more of over 50 bridges." Should that be "one of more"?

Some of the highways, like Interstate 5, cross the river multiple times. My phrasing was awkward, however, and Jsayre64 has fixed it. Finetooth (talk) 18:49, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Located at river mile (RM) 12.8 or (RK) 20.6," Very obscure unit here, so the RK isn't as intuitive as normal kilometres, so expand it.
"RM 15 or (RK) 24." I strongly suspect the parentheses there are misplaced, either the 24 should be inside them, or there should be none at all.

I think the problem was that "river kilometer" was omitted from the first of these two sentences, which was the first appearance of the term in the article. I added "river kilometer" so that the parenthetical abbreviations now make sense. Finetooth (talk) 18:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Although much more extensive in the 19th century, the remaining forests close to the river include large stands of black cottonwood, " This entire section feels like it has a problem with recentism.

The existing text says that the valley was once a prairie but is now largely devoted to farming and that the once extensive forests have been greatly reduced. I'm not sure what you are looking for here but will try to oblige if I can. What would you like to see? Finetooth (talk) 18:44, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"In 1993, the largest recent earthquake in the valley, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale, was centered near Scotts Mills, about 34 miles (55 km) south of Portland." Are you sure this is Richter Scale, and not the more common Moment magnitude scale? You may have the same problem in the next sentences.

Yes, Richter, according to the source. Finetooth (talk) 20:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tired enough that I'm having to read things three times, will continue tomorrow. Courcelles 01:56, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your efforts so far. Reviewing is hard work, and I often find my nose sinking into my keyboard late in the evening. Finetooth (talk) 20:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I took care of some of this. There was already a link to the Columbia River article in the infobox. I moved the link to the lead. I also removed the citations in the lead. I don't understand your fifth comment, though.

I'll try to do some research about historical flora and fauna along the river. But what should we do if I can't find anything to add? Jsayre64 (talk) 16:47, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And I think it really is the Richter scale. The sentence is sourced to this. "ML" is an abbreviation for the Richter scale. Jsayre64 (talk) 16:49, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

". "The whole Willamette valley was a sheet of water"." Who are we quoting here? Why is their opinion significant?

I've got nothing else, other than that one dangling quote. Courcelles 23:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed this. Thanks for the review, guys! Jsayre64 (talk) 00:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is an important quotation because I'm sure there aren't very many preserved (and short enough to quote in an article) descriptions of the 1861-62 flood. I also used {{rquote}} later on for the 1996 flood. Jsayre64 (talk) 00:32, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]