Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of mountain peaks of North America/archive1

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

The list was archived by SchroCat via FACBot (talk) 00:32, 14 May 2016 (UTC) [1].[reply]

List of mountain peaks of North America[edit]

List of mountain peaks of North America (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s):  Buaidh  16:48, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this article for featured list because I believe this article provides useful information about the mountains of North America in a convenient style. We would appreciate any constructive criticism. And yes, we do have a lot of references. Yours aye,  Buaidh  16:48, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This site has received 17,059 visits over the past 90 days.  Buaidh  04:17, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dudley

  • Starting a list article with wording of a type "This article comprises three sortable tables" is forbidden.
  • The lead should be a maximum of 4 paragraphs and should be referenced. The lead has 6 paragraphs and no refs.
  • Some of the lead is far too technical. For example: "The topographic prominence of a summit is the elevation difference between that summit and the highest or key col to a higher summit. The topographic isolation of a summit is the minimum great-circle distance to a point of equal elevation." Details like this should be in notes and the main text should be understandable to the general reader. I would suggest a separate notes section as well as the references section for details like this.
  • "For further information, please see this United States National Geodetic Survey note." Links should not be in the main text, only in references, and the whole comment should not be in the main text.
  • There are obviously technical reasons which are beyond my knowledge, but the division into three lists, with the top 100 in the first and the top 50 in the second and third, seems arbitrary. The title of the article is "List (singular) of mountain peaks of North America". Three different lists, with Denai top in all three, does not seem right. Why not just name the article "List of mountains of North America over x metres high", with one list?
  • A column for photos of each mountain against its entry (where available) would be better than a gallery at the end.
  • A lot of good work has obviously gone into this list, but in my view it is too technical for a general encyclopedia. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:59, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much for your very helpful comments. I primarily edit technical articles, so it’s nice to come up for air occasionally to see how these articles affect other readers.
In response to your first comment, I don’t understand why a description of the article is not appropriate in the lead.
I definitely concur with your second, third, and fourth comments. I’ve dropped most of this technical material into the references.
In response to your fifth comment, this article is a synopsis of three lists dealing with the three technical rankings of mountains.
  1. List of the highest major summits of North America (topographic elevation)
  2. List of the most prominent summits of North America (topographic prominence)
  3. List of the most isolated major summits of North America (topographic isolation)
Other than Denali being ranked first on all three, the lists are very different. The list you and most other readers should prefer is the first, the List of the highest major summits of North America. That list is probably the best candidate for featured list. This combined list is primarily for avid mountaineers and physical geographers who wish to compare relative rankings in the same article.
In response to your sixth comment, many peaks appear in all three tables. I think adding photos to the tables would overwhelm them. Photos are only available for some of the more famous peaks. I think a better place for summit thumbnails will be the "List of mountains" articles such as the List of mountains of the United States. I will see if there is support in WikiProject Mountains for adding summit thumbnails to those lists.
In response to your final comment, I would add that Wikipedia is both a general encyclopedia and the online encyclopedia with articles ranging from cartoon characters to quantum chromodynamics. While this list is primarily designed for mountain enthusiasts, I hope it is simple enough for the general reader.
Thanks again,  Buaidh  19:35, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My first comment was not a personal opinion. As I understand it, starting an article with "This article" is forbidden in the manual of style, but someone will no doubt correct me if I am wrong. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:59, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The Manual of Style discourages the use of "This is a list of X" where "List of X" is the name of the article. While the lead sentence does not repeat the article title, it also does not explain what the "three sortable tables" are or their significance. I'll add a non-technical explanation of the tables. Thanks,  Buaidh  01:36, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've made my first attempt at a simplified lead. Yours aye,  Buaidh  02:48, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments

  • Clarifying my comment that the article is too technical, I did not mean that technical subjects should be excluded. One of the functions of Wikipedia should be to explain technical subjects to laymen. Radiocarbon dating, for instance, succeeds triumphantly, but many fail. I once complained that Alkalinity is incomprehensible to non-scientists, and another editor disagreed on the ground that the article is incomprehensible to scientists. I find your revised explanation generally clear, apart from "highest or key col to a higher summit". Presumably the summit listed will in many cases be the highest in its range, so how can it be separated by a col from a higher summit? BTW I would link col.
  • I would suggest merging the second and third paragraphs of the lead, and the fourth states what applies to any geographical list - it could be deleted or relegated to a note.
  • Reviewers generally like to see a paragraph giving detail about particularly notable items on the list - for example expanding on the information about Denali in the picture caption.
  • I still find the title and rationale confusing. Why is it described as a list of mountain peaks when the items listed are described in their articles as mountains (not mountain peaks)? Why have a combined list with large amounts of duplicated information rather than just a list for each of the three categories? Why 100 of the first and 50 only in the second and third? Is it not misleading readers to call the article "List of mountain peaks of North America" when it is a list of a few of them selected according to technical criteria? These points should be explained, although in my view in notes rather than in main text. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:00, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again, Dudley.
Topographic prominence is a simple concept and a complicated measurement. I placed an explanation of the measurement into the references.
I merged the second and third paragraphs as you suggested. I think this is a significant improvement.
The last paragraph was for neophytes. I've removed it.
The Denali picture caption includes the links topographically prominent and topographically isolated which explain the significance of those measurements to Denali. Many references highlight notability. I'm not sure where else we could place notability detail.
There are many lists of mountains of North America on Wikipedia, including:
Since there are a great many mountain summit lists, this article attempts to be a synopsis and guide to the other lists. All articles named "List of mountain peaks of X" use the same format. I suppose these articles should be renamed "Major mountain summits of X" or "Multilist of major mountain summits of X" since they are a combination of lists. The title of these articles have already changed several times. I would appreciate any suggestions.
Why are there 100 summits ranked by elevation, 50 by prominence, and 50 by isolation in these lists? I would have preferred 100 summits in each table. The density of references limits us to about 230 total summits. Rather than listing 75 summits per table, I decided to include the 100 highest summits since that is what most readers understand, and only the 50 most prominent summits and the 50 most isolated major summits.
Yours aye,  Buaidh  18:52, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments

  • There are lists of mountains, lists of mountain peaks and lists of mountain summits. What is the difference between them? Why not just lists of mountains?
  • The lead does not comply with usual requirements. Your lead could be one of the four standard lead paragraphs. The others could be one with a (very brief) summary of the basic geology, one on the major mountain chains, and one giving interesting facts about a few mountains. For an idea of what reviewers expect see Crisco's objections at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Local Nature Reserves in Greater London/archive1 to my lead (before amendment) in List of local nature reserves in Greater London.
  • The lists themselves look to me fine. My only problems are with the lead and the article title. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:10, 2 May 2016 (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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