Wikipedia:Peer review/Skye/archive1

Skye

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it has been a stable GA for a while and I am intending an FA attempt but am a little rusty.

Thanks, Ben MacDui 16:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: This has improved a lot since I reviewed it for GA, here are some suggestions for improvement with an eye to FAC.

• The lead is OK as is, but seems a bit sparse to me - this may just be personal style, but could it be expanded a bit?
• Avoid use of words like today / now/ current as they can become outdated, so in the lead, could the actual year of the data be given instead of "today" in The events of the 19th century had a devastating impact on the human population, which today numbers around 9,200.
• Wikipedia:MOS#Percentages suggests spelling out per cent instead of using the symbol (except in tables)
• Should the inside or outside quotation marks be consistent in such as the "winged isle" or "the notched isle"[8]?
• This just seems awkward, but I am not able to suggest a good way to rewrite it In the Norse sagas Skye is called Skíð, for example in the Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar saga[14] and a skaldic poem in the Heimskringla from c. 1230 which contains a line that translates as "the hunger battle-birds were filled in Skye with blood of foemen killed".[15]
• Also wonder if the metric equivalent can somehow be added / noted in ...and W. H. Murray that "Skye is sixty miles [(100 km)] long, but what might be its breadth is beyond the ingenuity of man to state".[1] I tried adding it in square brackets, but that looks odd. In a separate footnote perhaps?
• In Prehistory, should Neolithic be linked?
• Same section, could a clearer indication of the location of Sand be given, perhaps something like ...occupation is probably linked to that of the rock shelter [on the mainland] at Sand, Applecross on the coast of Wester Ross.
• Is there anything else that could be added on Norse rule? Skye is mentioned in Etymology for example
• WP:HEAD says not to use characters like & in headers, so change Clans & Scottish rule to Clans and Scottish rule
• I think there needs to be more context provided for the reader in some places - for example, in the Clans section a brief explanation of the clans and how they actually ruled in Skye would help, or the Clearances section never really explains what was going on in the clearances (though it is wikilinked) or what crofters were
• Or in Overview of population trends (could this just be Population trends?) say explicilty that people moved off the land (small farms / crofters) and into villages
• History section seems very sparse in terms of 20th century events
• WP:MOS#Images says that pictures of faces should look into the text if at all possible, so could the picture of Charles Kennedy MP be right justified instead?
• It also says not to sandwich text between images, but the Skye Bridge photo and the Cuillin ridge from Portree harbour photo form a sandwich on my monitor
• The Transport section has two paragraphs in a row that start with the Skye Bridge linking the island to the mainland - watch WP:OVERLINKing (it is linked once in each paragraph) and could these be combined somehow? Perhaps start with the ferries, then go on to the bridge?
• The Culture section (but not The Culture of another Scot) starts with three one-sentence paragraphs - could these be combined or expanded to improve flow in the article?
• Give years or centuries for the two long quotes in the Wildlife section
• The {{Panorama}} template might be a nicer way to display File:Loch Fada Storr Skye restitch 2007-08-22.jpg
• I read this with some distractions (so it might just be that) but it seemed to need a better flow from section to section in places - more of a collection of interesting facts and less a coherent whole than it probably shopuld be for FAC.

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 _><>°^° 18:00, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Comments from Colin

A good article. I haven't studied the sources but here's some comments I made as I read:

• Not sure the comment on the Gaelic name is important enough for the lead paragraph.
• "The events of the 19th century" -- Immediately wondering "what events". Could you say here "famine and the clearances"?
• "today" probably should be "as of 20XX". Or rephrase to be "In the XX years since the census of 1991..."
• "now linked" drop the now. If you want to indicate how recent, then say "since XXXX,"
• I would question "abundant wildlife". Is there more wildlife on those barren hills than any other rural part of Scotland?
• Is the lead an adequate summary of the article, or just an introduction with a few select facts?
• "Etymology" wouldn't be my first choice of section. It is an erudite subject to lead with. Possibly too much weight given to this aspect compared to others.
• The article isn't consistent wrt Clan Leod, Clan MacLeod, Clan Donald, Clan MacDonald.
• Some passive voice coupled with indirect facts: "In April 2007 it was reported in the media that the island's official name..." and "On 21 December 2004 it was announced that the Scottish Executive had purchased the bridge".

Colin°^Talk 20:59, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks to you both. Ben MacDui 18:14, 1 November 2009 (UTC)