Wikipedia:Peer review/Doom Bar/archive1

Doom Bar

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… I am hoping to put Doom Bar forward for Featured article status at some point in the future, and was wonder what recommendations other members of the community would have for improvement beforehand.

I would also appreciate it if someone could tell me outright if this article will never reach featured status, for whatever reason.

Thanks, Worm 11:28, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: I think this is an interesting article and do not see any readon why it could not eventually be a FA. Thanks for you work on it. That said, it needs quite a bit of work before it would stand a chance of passing FAC, so here are some suggestions for improvement.

• The lead is pretty short and could be expanded to provide a better overview of and introduction to the article. I would mention the earliest recorded dates for the bar in the lead, and would also mention some of the shipwrecks which have their own sections. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way.
• One of the most difficult criteria for FAC is 1a - a professional level of English. This article has a fair number of typos and rough spots, as well as some places where the meaning is just not as clear as it could be. One example is in the lead It became so notorious that many vessels would risk being wrecked rather than negotiate the entrance to Padstow. First off, Padstow has not been mentioned before, so the average reader does not know it is a harbor. Second, it seems somewhat contradictory - the previous sentence said the bar was the site of many wrecks, then this says ships risked being wrecked rather than ... being wrecked on the bar?? Third, can a vessel really risk something? Isn't it the captain and crew who make such decisions?
• Per WP:LEAD alternate names, such as Dunbar Sands, are usually shown in boldface font in the lead.
• I would also give the pronounciation of Dunbar (I usually think of the word as rhyming with "run far", but the name Doom bar makes think that the syllable Dun rhymes with tune or tune instead.
• I will try to nopte as many typos and rough spots as I can, but this is not a complete list. I will start with the
  • Missing word? Sand bars [form?] when surface waves from the ocean is forced against the flow of a river.
  • Water in and of itself does not have directions - its flow can though and I think that is what it meant in The different directions of the water [flow?] create a process of forced diffusion,[1] scattering the sedimentary deposit from both at a harbour entrance or river mouth.[2] It is also not super clear here what both refers to (assume it is the river and ocean)
  • Could be tightened ("in the case of" is almost never needed in Wikipedia articles: In the case of the Doom Bar, it was created by the Celtic Sea meeting the River Camel.
  • Gaelic is usually capitalized
  • I would provide years where possible - this is done in some cases, but not all (Saxon times).
• I think these examples make it clear that the article needs a copyedit
• Any idea why the name was changed to Doom Bar from Dunbar sands? Why did it form when it did?
• Another major potential issue at FAC would be the references. There are several potential problems with the ones used in the article.
• First off, some of the sources used as references are incomplete. Current ref 3 is just "England's Riviera. Taylor & Francis. p. 339. http://books.google.com/books?id=maA9AAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA339&pg=PA339#v=onepage&q&f=false." This is a book, but the Google Books link provides very little information on it (no preview is available) so I am not sure what it adds. The ref has no author listed, no date or place of publication, and no ISBN (if it has one). One of the purposes of a reference is to allow interested readers the chance to look up additional information, but I am not even sure what book this is to be able to look into it.
• Another example is current ref 38 "When a ghost took a starring role". Weekend Times. 30 May 1981. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=aiY-AAAAIBAJ&sjid=sEoMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4568,5910767&dq=doom-bar&hl=en. Retrieved 19 November 2010." which is from a newspaper and also lists an author and a page number
• I am also concerned that the refs used now would not meet WP:WIAFA citerion 1c well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate; Many of the books cited which are specific to the DOom Bar are quite old - is there nothing more recent on it?
• Other refs used do not mention the Doom Bar at all - so for example, these two sentences This combined with the natural sea salt made the sand very valuable to farmers to mix into manure, creating an alkaline fertilizer. The newly created fertilizer allows plants to grow in Cornwall's acidic soil.[6] are cited to this ref CORNISH HEDGES IN GARDENS, but it makes no mention that I could find of Doom or bar or Dunbar or even sea salt or manure or farmers, and the only relevant mention of sand is "If you add shell sand or lime you can grow plants that dislike an acid soil..." I do not doubt that the statement is true, but needs better refs
• Another example of the text not being fully supported by the refs cited is One of the best known references to the Doom Bar is the bitter beer by Sharp's Brewery. As the flagship beer for the brewery, it has facilitated the growth from 1,500 barrels in 1994[31] to over 45,000 barrels in 2008.[32]. The refs back up the numbers and the brwery, but do not say this is "One of the best known references to the Doom Bar "
• Another thing to worry about is whether or not these are reliable sources - what makes the ref on Cornish Hedges a RS? or why is Hops and Pips a RS?
• Headers need to follow WP:HEAD - watch capitalization
• Caption of the two maps could mention the years as they are too small to read easily on my computer.
• File:Wrecks off the Doom Bar.jpg has a 1969 copyright notice and is not free.
• Any chance for more photos?
• Why are only these three shipwrecks described of the many that have taken place there?
• SPell out abbreviations on first use.
• Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches for more details

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 05:36, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Response copied here from my talk page Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Just a couple of questions, feel free to answer them where you like, I've got pretty much everything watchlisted!

1. The sources are old because it is no longer a significant danger, the channel moved and there are less accidents. I'm already referencing the more modern books I've found, but I found a lot more from the 19th century. Is there a way to resolve this?
2. Regarding the hedges and gardens, I was using that to show that Cornwall specifically has acidic sand, and that shell sand could be used to combat that. That matched my other reference that the doom bar had a high percentage shell sand, and was used in agriculture. When I put it up for a good review, I needed a little more explanation of how and why it was used with manure, and that reference was the best I could find. I'm not sure I could find a Doom Bar reference which states that Cornwall has acidic soil AND how sand from the Doom Bar is used to combat that.

Otherwise, I'll try and have a go at adding your suggestions, thanks again for your help Worm 10:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I mis-spoke above, sorry. There is no exclusion of old sources, but modern sources should also be included. When I search for "Doom Bar" on Google Books, it finds 868 books. Now not all of those are going to be useful, but there are many farily recent books that come up. One modern book I looked at in preview there is "Cornwall from the Coast Path" by Michael Kent and Merryn Kent [1] - it mentions the Doom Bar on pp. 41 and 43 and gives the most recent death from it (1997), over 300 boats lost there, including 3 lifeboats, two dramatic 2007 rescues, and the fact that the RNLI station was moved in 1967 because of the Doom Bar. I would look at this and more recent sources to meet the FAC criteria of quality sources and comprehensiveness. Please get the books from a library - don't just depend on Google Books unless it is full view.

Another Google Books find was this from 1865 (full view) [2] which says in part "The Doom Bar is abed of yellow calcareous sand; it extends nearly across the entrance of the Camel river ... The sand of this bar is valued for manure, and is shipped away in great quantities." I do not have a problem with a ref that says sand can be added to Cornwall's soil, but the article says a lot more than that and the ref cited in the article currently does not back everything else up. Multiple refs may be needed - this new one mentions manure and does not mention that the Doom Bar's sand is used this way. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

PS I just searched "History Padstow" on Google Books and found this. It has a nice breif history of the Padstow Lifeboat and its rescue service and a few mentions of the Doom Bar. Searching for related terms can often be helpful. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

There are a number of dramatic free images of the Doom Bar and its sands on Geograph - see for example this one. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)