Wikipedia:Peer review/San Francisco, California/archive1

San Francisco, California

The article on San Francisco was listed as a Good Article, and then nominated for Featured Article Status. It failed the FA nomination, so clearly it is in need of more work. Please take a look at the article and make suggestions for improvement.

Personally, I think there is too much trivia and minutiae. The FA-review mentioned the County Jails section (I'd remove this) and the Education section. And there seem to be too many lists, which makes the flow poor. I (and other editors who have worked on the article) would appreciate specific comments on areas that should be prioritized for more work. Please suggest where citations are needed, which sections might be removed or moved to their own articles, and which areas have weak writing. And certainly, any other areas where you can make suggestions are also welcome.

Here are some of the comments the FA reviewers made:

• Have at least 3 tags on sections that need to be split
• large white spaces created by picture location
• two reference styles
• one-sentence sections (about jails)
• trivia and unreferenced notables
• a large number of external jumps
• need for inline citations (example, The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the west coast, but that title is now held by the joint ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach)
• In "History", I counted seven running paragraphs constructed of just ten sentences.
• More stubs further down, especially in "Media". Isn't "southeast" one word? Please polish it. Tony 02:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• Don't like the "County jails" and "education" sections
• Prose improvement

And here are a few points I've gathered from looking at other peer review comments:

• Article too long (80k)
• Too much non-encyclopedic & topical material.
• Self indulgent about sexual and political matters

Thank you for any help! --Paul 21:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

To start it off, take out the "county jails" section and perhaps integrate it into the "crime" section or leave it out altogether. No other city article (except perhaps Seattle, and only one sentence) even mentions jails and/or prisons. --physicq210 21:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Now we're cooking! I've moved the County Jails material to its own article San Francisco, California: County Jails --Paul 03:30, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Another piece of advice: Combine the coffee houses section with the section mentioning the San Francisco counterculture movement. I don't have time to do this sort-of tedious work; I'm working on the San Francisco International Airport article (which, coincidentially, is also undergoing peer review to prep it for FA status). --physicq210 04:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

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There must be a better picture of one of the most beautiful cities in the world available for the opening shot.

The Table of Contents is a bit overwhelming, but can be solved by losing the unencyclopedic trivia (since your trivia is completely unreferenced anyway, it needs to go). One way to save that content, but remove it from an article you want to feature, may be to spin it into a daughter article, using Summary Style. Jails can be combined with crime; coffee houses, and nightlife don't warrant their own sections. (Why would you cover coffee houses, and yet leave out Union Street, the fabulous restaurants, etc? The topics you have chosed to cover are sporadic. A picture of the Palace of Fine Arts, but no discussion of the history? Almost nothing about the Presidio?) Find ways to make a better organized article, which will be reflected in a cleaner TOC. Colleges and Universities can also have their own article, using Summary Style, which will help clean up this article, which is too listy and too long. (Why is SF claiming Stanford and Berkeley? You don't need to stretch the facts to make SF seem better than it already is.) Just as you have a separate article for airports, you can have a separate article for schools.

This article is confused: it's supposed to be about SF, but you're including South Bay and East Bay in terms of universities and sports. The Oakland Raiders are not part of San Francisco. Get non-SF out of the article, and use the space to tell us more about San Francisco highlights and sports, the new Giants stadium, PacBell, for example. You're covering way too much stuff outside of SF, but don't cover well the SF highlights and landmarks. Why are you telling me about Oakland airport and NASA in Mountain View in an SF article? The article is not The SF Bay Area. There is much more than can be said about SF, once you get the non-SF content out. Or, move all of that to a separate section about the Greater Bay Area. (There's already an article on San Francisco Bay Area; no need to duplicate content: there's enough you can say about SF city and county.)

The poor arrangement of pictures needs to be dealt with. Some can be moved to the left (rather than right justified). Some can be moved up or down a paragraph. They are all shoved together, creating large white chunks without text. Arrange them so that you don't have those big chunks of white space, which is unsightly and not "our best work". I moved two pictures to give you a sample: look at the page before and after those moves.

You need to do a *lot* of work on referencing. First, you need to do more inline citing. The article is under-referenced (particularly for FA standards). Second, you mix ref styles: convert all refs to m:Cite/Cite.php format. Third, you aren't punctuating the footnotes correctly (see WP:FN). The ref goes after punctuation.

Refer to WP:GTL: your See also is in the wrong place.

Now, once you clear all that "stuff" out, you can focus on the items you've ignored.

Your prose needs polishing: Rail extensions there include BART and Caltrain via BART at nearby Millbrae, California. Where - to the airport? Network to find someone who can help you clean up the prose, after you've rewritten the article.

History needs to be thoroughly referenced. Why is homelessness in history?

Here's a random item: things like this need attention. In the mid 1830s, the first city street plan was laid out by the Mission Alcalde, Francisco de Haro, I know an alcalde is a mayor, but do most people know that? You might need to Wikilink more, or define terms.

The area became Mexican upon Mexico's independence from Spain and fell into isolation. Fell into isolation? From whom/what/where/when?

One paragraph on the earthquake? One sentence on the two great bridges?

The city is also where Bank of America was founded. That's it for A.P. Giannini?

See also: Companies Headquartered in San Francisco, California Can you put that at the top of the section, instead of in the middle?

The media section is full of external jumps, which should be eliminated.

A list of schools is of little use: what are the issues with the schools in SF?

It might help to compare with FA Boston, Massachusetts, although it isn't well enough referenced (standards for inline citations have improved since it passed FA).

No mention of Harvey Milk?

Crime is completely unreferenced.

Private school list is incomplete, so spin them to a daughter article.

Sorry for rambling: that should be enough to work on for a while. Sandy 03:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

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Changes

• Unsourced trivia list removed
• "See also"s moved per WP:GTL
• Crime section removed (three paragraps of a sentence each with no references)
• Sports section edited to remove non-SF sporting activities
• Convert all in-line and external-jump references & links to correct ref syntax
• Spun off Educaton lists and rewrote education section
• Removed excessive pictures to improve formatting
• Rewrote Climate section; added weatherbox
• Sister Cities & Famous People Trivia removed
• Substantial rewriting and cutting has reduced article from 80K to 59K

--Paul 03:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC) --Paul 22:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC) --Paul 16:36, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

• I removed external jumps from one sentence in Media, to show you an example of the work that needs to be done there. Sandy 15:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Second look

Far better organization and citing.

In the media section, why is this a red link:

See also: List of television stations in the San Francisco Bay Area

This needs inline citations:

The San Francisco Chronicle, a broadsheet for which Herb Caen famously published his daily musings, is northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The San Francisco Examiner, once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire, has declined over the years and been reduced to a tabloid.

Schools: no mention at all of private schools other than Catholic. Isn't there a very fine all boys' school in SF?

Culture and contemporary life is in need of references, throughout. Way too much emphasis on counterculture and alternate lifestyles, not enough about the thriving business community. Paints SF as unidimensional.

Museums, no link to Palace of Fine Arts or mention of World Fair origins?

Transportation, screaming for inline citations throughout, for example:

San Francisco has the most extensive public transit system on the U.S. West Coast and one of the most diverse in the country. It also has one of the highest riderships; 35% of the city's population use public transit as part of their daily commute.

Airports: still mentioning airports that are not SF airports, rather Bay Area. Why not delete references to non-SF airports, and instead use the space to discuss the HORRIFIC issues of construction at SFO, and how the airport has been utterly destroyed by poor planning?

Although the article is much improved, there are still too many statements throughout that need inline citations, if the article is to pass FAC. For example, The Mission District, site of the Mission Dolores, is the oldest neighborhood in the city.

I stopped there, and will review again after the article is thoroughly referenced. Sandy 20:14, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Third look

• I found several typos within references (bot checks don't pick those up). You should put the entire article into a spell checker for review.
• The newspaper refs (at least, maybe others) aren't done correctly: I fixed one as example, to include the author and date of publication. If a link goes dead, a reader needs the information to find the newspaper article in a library.
  • Raine, George. Tourism dollars add up: San Francisco seeing more visitors, more cash -- it's our No. 1 industry. San Francisco Chronicle (May 13, 2006). Accessed August 23, 2006.
• I found several instances of no spaces between words or after punctuation (those corrections don't show on diffs). It seems like a thorough copy edit is still needed.
• There are still missing citations: example "San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over 7 million - the fifth largest CSA in the United States" and "San Francisco is a minority-majority city as non-Hispanic Whites make up 43% of the population. Asian-Americans, principally Chinese, comprise 31% of the population, giving the city the highest such concentration of any city in the continental United States. Hispanics of any race make up 14% of the population. At less than 8% of the population, San Francisco has fewer African-Americans than most other large American cities." The article needs to be *thoroughly* cited.
• This statement is POV, and says nothing of the San Francisco I know, which is neither of these: San Francisco is at once, bohemian enclave and home to the world's wealthy. It is also uncited.
• There are numerous instances of prose that needs polishing, example: "Though hilly, San Francisco is a relatively small and compact city with mixed-use character and residents and visitors create a rich street environment walking to shops and meals."

The article still needs a lot of work. I haven't even checked the prose. (I'm going to have limited computer access for the next two weeks, and won't be able to check again.) Sandy 02:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

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A note: Try to avoid one-sentence paragraphs. --physicq210 20:31, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

• Red Link See also: List of television stations in the San Francisco Bay Area - FIXED
• Inline citations: Chronical & Examiner - FIXED
• Schools: no mention at all of private schools other than Catholic. - MORE ADDED
• Culture & Contemporary Life - FIXED
• Museums, no link to Palace of Fine Arts or mention of World Fair origins? - FIXED
• Transporation citations needed - FIXED
• The Mission District, site of the Mission Dolores, is the oldest neighborhood in the city. -FIXED

--Paul 20:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

• The embedded refs section was moved to an external editor and checked for correct spelling.
• All refs with authors and publication dates have been updated per the above example.
• The article source was exported to an external editor and spell-checked, finding a number of spacing problems including too many & not enough

• "San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over 7 million - the fifth largest CSA in the United States" and "San Francisco is a minority-majority city as non-Hispanic Whites make up 43% of the population. Asian-Americans, principally Chinese, comprise 31% of the population, giving the city the highest such concentration of any city in the continental United States. Hispanics of any race make up 14% of the population. At less than 8% of the population, San Francisco has fewer African-Americans than most other large American cities."

  These statements along with many many others have been referenced. There is now over 17K of reference material in the article.

• This statement is POV, and says nothing of the San Francisco I know, which is neither of these: San Francisco is at once, bohemian enclave and home to the world's wealthy. It is also uncited.

  The statement has been removed & the entire section was rewritten.

• There are numerous instances of prose that needs polishing, example: "Though hilly, San Francisco is a relatively small and compact city with mixed-use character and residents and visitors create a rich street environment walking to shops and meals."

  This sentence (and many related ones) have been rewritten.--Paul 00:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Fourth Look

Comments below were made on August 29, 2006 and transferred to this page on August 30.
Wow, I guess there's been a lot of work! Overall, the quality of the article is vastly better than the last time I read it. Great work! I went through and fixed a few minor spelling and punctuation errors myself but there are a few other points I wanted to mention:

• A few of the sections towards the bottom (colleges and universities, culture and contemporary life) read like they still use a bit of a copyedit.
  • These sections have been rewritten once again.--Paul 00:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
• The third paragraph in the lead sounds somewhat strange to me.
  • Third paragraph has been rewritten.--Paul 00:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
• "Nearby are the equally well known Twin Peaks, a pair of hills..." equally well known as what?
  • Reworded "equally well known" removed.--Paul 00:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
• I noticed that the list of sister cities was removed, was this accidental or was there a reason for this?
  • Sister cities was moved to a daughter article and referenced in the ==See Also== section.--Paul 00:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
• I would add a little more information regarding the 1906 earthquake to the history section. The short paragraph that currently exists seems to start rather suddenly and it seems like there should be a little bit more about one of the defining events in San Francisco's history.
  • Added a lot more information about the 1906 earthquake and fire including a number of really good references.--Paul 00:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
• Would you mind adding a brief mention of Fort Point somewhere in the history section?
  • Early activities at Fort Point, Alcatraz & the Presidio have been added.--Paul 00:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I would definitely support another featured article nomination if a few of the above things can be addressed. The only other thing that I can think of that might cause some opposition in another nomination would be the length of the article. Personally, I have no problem with this. I would much rather read a long article that is very comprehensive than one that leaves out relevent information but I've gotten the feeling that many other users don't feel the same way when it comes to featured articles.

Anyways, I should have left for work about 10 minutes ago, great job on the article and let me know what you think about those suggestions. --Nebular110 02:34, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Fifth Look

This may be perhaps my last bit of advice before this article goes for FA (moved here from the article talkpage):

In my opinion, the neighborhood section still needs a bit of chopping. Try moving a bit of information over to the main neighborhoods article, as not every neighborhood needs to be mentioned on the main page. Change this, and I will support FA without any qualms. Good job to everyone who contributed during this marathon overhaul, with most thanks given to Paul.h and DaveOinSF! --physicq210 00:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I have cut 20% out of the neighborhoods section. See if you don't think it reads better now. Thank you for the supportive comments. --Paul 01:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

• Looking pretty good, but still needs some work, so I'll try to point out what I see to help make this one sail smoothly through FAC if possible.

• Needs a bit more info on income distibution and avg income. What information that is there is in the Culture section which seems really out of place. Why not cover it in the economics or demographics section where it fits more logically?
• Crime needs to be covered to be comprehensive. Comparisons to national averages for the major categories and to cities of similar size are needed. Doesn't need it's own section, but it does need a full paragraph perhaps in the demographics section.
• The neighborhoods section still has too much detail and instead needs more overview. The detail should be moved to the sub article and replaced with summary, overview information. We don't need a listing of all neighborhoods, but a bit of info on the most important onces and the rest as an overview of the reasons for the differences in different areas.
• The climate section could use more information on number of sunny vs cloudy days, and number of foggy days. The extremely unusual monthly temperature distribution could use a source noting how unsual that is for basically anywhere else in the US, and for all I know any other temperate climates. I'm not sure but the microclimates are probably important enought to warrant a little more space. My understanding is the Giants moved from Candlestick partly for the better weather a few miles away. You don't need to mention that trivia here, it's just evidence for such pronounced microclimates being unusual.
• All of the above I mentioned needs citation to reliable sources. - Taxman ^Talk 18:10, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Response Thank you to Taxman for these comments, they have been addressed as follows:

• Data for total and per capita personal income, as well as for % of families below the poverty line have been added to the Demographics section. Crime data was also added along with comparisons to U.S. averages and other large cities.
• The neighborhood section was cut by close to 50%
• The climate section was expanded with more data on the climate type, sunny & cloudy days, and microclimates. I found data for fog, but it is gathered at the airport and is not representitive of what happens in the western part of San Francisco proper, so I didn't include it. Climate data wouldn't reflect the fog anyway, as it is mostly a morning phenomenon, burning off by noon or a bit later.

All of the comments from reviewers on this page have been a tremendous help, as anyone can see by comparing different versions of the article! Thank you to all for taking the time to read and make positive suggestions.--Paul 03:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)