Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fort Yellowstone/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by GrahamColm 10:02, 2 May 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Fort Yellowstone[edit]

Fort Yellowstone (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): MONGO 16:07, 13 April 2013 (UTC) User:Mike Cline[reply]

Interesting storyline about the U.S. Army management of the worlds first national park, Yellowstone. Article covers history of the construction of the various buildings, their uses then and now as well as the role the army played in setting precedents that were mostly adopted intact by the National Park Service when that agency was created. 90 percent of the research and text here is due to User:Mike Cline, so should the article be promoted, he deserves the credit...both he and I will be able to address issues as they're brought to our attention. Fort Yellowstone is currently a Good Article since January and has had a recent Peer Review here and some "Pre-FAC issues" were resolved a week ago.MONGO 16:07, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Thank you for addressing my concerns. Praemonitus (talk) 21:15, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment about the article.--MONGO 18:48, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I found a few issues:
  • "In By 1883, under the leadership of Senator George Vest, the U.S. Congress had resisted a decade of efforts by concessionaires, railroad and mining interests to commercialize and privatize park lands. The Sundry Civil Appropriations Bill of 1883 allowed the Interior Department to transfer control of the park to the War Department, thereby protecting Yellowstone from schemes to commercialize the park.": This description is missing an element. First Congress proposes the bill, then it resists the commercial interests, and finally it is passed.
    • Not as simple as that. Between 1872 and 1886, the Department of the Interior was pretty much incompetent in protecting the park and officials pretty much complicit in allowing, supporting, encouraging and participating in schemes to commercialize the park in enumerable ways. Dozens of bills went sent to congress over the years and Vest was a leader in thwarting these efforts. Additionally, Vest was instrumental in getting Interior Department decisions that would have harmed the park overturned. It came to a head in the Sundry Bill of 1883 when Vest was able to get authority to transfer control of the park to War from Interior. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:54, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Is the current text supposed to communicate this? Because it doesn't. All I see are two seemingly disconnected statements. Praemonitus (talk) 00:58, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • What if read as modified above? The point here is that the 1883 bill set the stage for eventual Army control. A stage that needed setting, because for the previous decade a lot of bad stuff was happening. The details of that bad stuff aren't really relevant to this article, but without connecting the two ideas in some way, there appear no rationale for the the 1883 Sundry bill language. ?? --Mike Cline (talk) 12:34, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • It helps, but it still needs some language to tie the two statements together. How does that look? Praemonitus (talk) 15:21, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • I've gone and added some nuances to help bridge these issues.--MONGO 16:12, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In August 1886, Lieutenant General Philip Sheridan sent Company M, 1st U.S. Cavalry" to Yellowstone park where they "established Camp Sheridan"
    User:WereSpielChequers beat me to that.--MONGO 16:22, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The most significant building constructed in 1895 was the U.S. Commissioner's jail and office and U.S. Marshal's residence (Bldg 49).": something of a run-on sentence that seemed to imply multiple buildings. Perhaps: "...1895 provided an office and jail for the U.S. Commissioner and a residence for the U.S. Marshall"?
    Adjusted this somewhat differently than proposed...didn't want it to look like the U.S. Commissioner was in jail himself.--MONGO 16:22, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "...was required to maintain a high level of training related to cavalry skills, they required...": too many uses of 'required' here. The first is the cause, the second is the consequence.
    Tweaked this to make it easier to follow.--MONGO 16:35, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In 1918, then Director...": I don't see a need for a 'then' here. The time frame is already established.
    Removed and adjusted for flow.--MONGO 17:02, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise it seems like a decent article. Praemonitus (talk) 21:44, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Does the map in the lead represent the buildings as of now? As of 1913?
    This is how the buildings were built...the buildings in black were built by the army and are still in use...not sure about the grey ones.--MONGO 17:02, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:FortYellowstoneMap-2.jpg credits the Yellowstone Association as the author, while the licensing says it was a Park Service employee - which is correct?
    It appears to be a scan of a brochure page, probably published jointly by the NPS and the Yellowstone Association as part of their tour guide. I'm not sure what tag it should have.--MONGO 17:02, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I asked an admin at Commons to adjust the image license accordingly.--MONGO 04:06, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:FortYellowstone1895FJHaynes.jpg needs US PD tag. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:42, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Adjusted.--MONGO 17:02, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Most of my concerns not raised below were raised by other and have been addressed. Montanabw(talk) 21:06, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for you comments and support!--MONGO 03:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Montanabw: I have not worked on this article, so I will begin a review and hope to be able to support the FAC. More to come over the next couple of days. Montanabw(talk) 22:59, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • On an initial review, this article is a bit too image-heavy. The gallery in particular is too much. The photo in that group by F. J. Haynes is worth keeping, partly due to the significance of Haynes, and for its standalone historic value, but I am of the view that the others in the gallery should either replace lesser-quality images elsewhere in the article or be tossed. A few of the other images should be spread out a bit, as on my computer, there are a couple spots where the text was sandwiched between right and left-justified images. Montanabw(talk) 22:59, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Will try and decide which images should remain and if so where...might take a couple days.--MONGO 02:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support now PumpkinSky talk 13:08, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you!--MONGO 03:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments by PumpkinSky: I don't mind the images in the horizontal line, but if those could be centered left to right, that'd be nice. More of a concern to me is all the ones on the right side, from Commissioner's Office to Soldier Station as there are so many they mess up the alignment of the article text, at least on my screen. A couple of those should be cut. I have no issues with prose and once Nikki's image issues are fixed and this photo alignment, I'll support. PumpkinSky talk 00:02, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As mentioned above to Montanabw, will get the images reduced/repositioned in a day or two.--MONGO 02:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Montanabw and PumpkinSky...I removed the galley, placing 2 images from it elsewhere...also repositioned other images at left hand alignment trying to jog them through the article and prevent text squeezing (something I detest as well)...I use IE8 at 1024X700ish resolution...and don't see any issues. How about on your systems? Does this look better now?--MONGO 18:48, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. Just a few comments from me, since others are working on the prose review you'll need: - Dank (push to talk)

  • "as administrative offices, residences for National Park Service employees and as a museum and visitor center": nonparallel series
  • "Beyond the immediate confines of the fort, cabins were constructed for use by small detachments of army personnel while on patrol throughout the park.": Cabins were constructed throughout the park for use by small patrols of army personnel.
  • "Campaign hat": lowercase
  • "privatize park lands including those managed by the Department of the Interior. The poorly funded Department of the Interior was unable to prevent degradation of the park ...": There are several ways around the repetition. I think simply dropping the first "including ... Interior" works, since the second sentence will imply that Interior had some kind of oversight role, but if you'd rather keep it, don't repeat "Department of the Interior". - Dank (push to talk) 03:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "newly-formed": no hyphen per WP:HYPHEN. - Dank (push to talk) 03:38, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Dank...I think I have corrected/adjusted these points. It might still need some cleanup on the Department of Interior issue. I was thinking about whether to just call it the Interior Department or add a (DOI) after the first mention and abbreviate it thereafter. I'm not afan of too many abbreviations since one could say we should just do that with Fort Yellowstone and call it FY. Thoughts?--MONGO 01:47, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I wouldn't abbreviate Interior Department either. - Dank (push to talk) 01:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Went and changed it simply to Interior Department...and did a number of other adjustments for wording flow, and adjusted capitalization issues per MOS.--MONGO 15:46, 20 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment reading through, but seeing white space after the "1911–1913" section on my monitor. Ceoil (talk) 09:53, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Me too and on two different monitors. Looks like you need to cut the 1911-1913 section photo or add another paragraph to it. PumpkinSky talk 10:46, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Loosing images can be a painful process. Some suggestions though its up to the main editors; force size the images at around 200px, or pair them similar to the lead images here, or reorganise the whole section with less headers. Ceoil (talk) 11:53, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • HI Ceoil...appreciate your copyedits...on my system, I'm not seeing any whitespace at all, and I didn't see any before, so I can't fix something I can't see. I already removed several images and removed the gallery and moved a few around to try and eliminate this issue that must be going on, but as I stated, I don't have this visible on my system. Neither on my setup, which is IE8 1024X768 resolution or on my blackberry am I seeing any whitespace. I might look at it on a friends laptop to see if I can notice this issue.--MONGO 15:50, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Now, I see the year 1891 heading is in the middle of the page...maybe as you have mentioned, we can eliminate the various headings and combine the sections into two major building perods, which are distinct mainly due to the type of material used. The earlier stage was mostly wood framed while the latter was mostly from quarried sandstone? Let me know and I can take care of that and see how it looks then.--MONGO 15:56, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
MONGO, IMO the "U.S. Commissioner's office" is the least essential of these pics, visually, and could prob go. That said, I dont want this FAC to get bogged down on image placement, and will leave it to you on this, enough is said now. Overall Im impressed with the article, which seems comprehensive, well written and well sourced. Let me read though a bit more. Ceoil (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah...it was removed...I also did some left/right jogging of the images to even out the possible crowding issues. MOS recommends right alignment of images at beginning of sections and I usually adhere to this, but there have been FA's that don't follow that MOS. I also replaced one image with a better one from Commons that shows the current NPS HQ.--MONGO 18:27, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've now gone and condensed the years into two construction periods...let me know how that looks.--MONGO 18:32, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It looks, and more importantly, flows, much better now. Ceoil (talk) 18:46, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • FAC people what is still needed for this to get promoted? PumpkinSky talk 13:32, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    based on my last FAC, about two weeks...  ;-P Though sometimes a kind and gentle ping to the powers that be can help. Montanabw(talk) 18:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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