Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Effects of Hurricane Georges in Louisiana/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 SandyGeorgia 05:25, 12 August 2009 [1].

Effects of Hurricane Georges in Louisiana[edit]

Nominator(s): Cyclonebiskit (talk) 17:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because I feel it meets all FA criteria. All thoughts and comments are welcome. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 17:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks, the images have alt text, but the alt text needs work. The currently alt text is just a copy of the captions. But alt text has a different function from the caption, and typically the alt text and caption should overlap little, if at all. Please see WP:ALT #What not to specify and WP:ALT #Flawed and better examples and then give it another go. Eubulides (talk) 06:27, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, much better, but still needs work. The alt text too often give details like "Hurricane Georges" or "Chandelur Islands" that cannot be verified merely by looking at the image (unless you are an expert). An ordinary reader won't look at the Chandelur Islands photo and say "that looks like the Chandelur Islands". I reworded the first few; can you please reword the last two? Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 18:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I came back to see that the alt text problems were still present, and fixed them as best I could. Eubulides (talk) 03:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Why are the damages and deaths repeated twice in the lead, in the first sentence of each paragraph? Also, for the images in the Impact section, can you find a way (might involve playing around with the template itself), to use {{Double image stack}} as used in Raymore Drive? The way those two small images are positioned looks awkward. I'll probably add more comments, as I'm combing the article over to use it as a model for writing an effects article myself. Maxim(talk) 12:41, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the double image link, I didn't know that existed. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 12:46, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I think the prose needs more work. The year of the hurricane needs to be specfied at the beginning of the article (not just in the infobox); in the Preparations section third paragraph there are multiple repetitions of evacuate/evacuated/evacuation – nine in all; "Record-breaking" needs a hyphen; "declared disaster declarations" is not good prose. These are examples of points needing attention; in addition there are numerous no-break space omissions throughout the article. Brianboulton (talk) 16:44, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Done these examples. Will try to copyedit the article more thoroughly tomorrow. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:04, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Copyedited the entire article. I'll proofread it tomorrow. –Juliancolton | Talk 04:59, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments: Most of my earlier concerns have been addressed. I have since had the chance to read the article through, which has brought to light several more (manly prose) points:-

  • "On September 16, the depression was upgraded into Tropical Storm Georges and further into Hurricane Georges the next day." The word "further" is disruptive and unnecessary. Also, "into" rather than "to"? My preferred version would be: "On September 16, the depression was upgraded to Tropical Storm Georges, and to Hurricane Georges the next day." Also, shouldn't Tropical Storm Georges be wikilinked?
  • Done and it doesn't have to be linked since the article is linked in the lead and there is a {{Main article|Hurricane Georges}} in that section Cyclonebiskit (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Excuse my ignorance, but what time was "1500 UTC". I've never heard of UTC, and the link hasn't made me any wiser.
  • Coordinated Universal Time is the standard time unit for world events, the time zone it is centered around is the Grand Meridian. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The number of "evacuate/evacuations" in paragraph 3 of Preparations has been reduced from 9 to 6, but the repetition still jars. Because hurricane articles all tend to use the same terminology, it is important where possible to vary the language. Here, the first "evacuated from" could be replaced by "left". Likewise, Grand Isle's 1,500 residents could be ordered to "leave", and the large-scale evacuations could be described as "population movements". Please consider.
  • "were confined", followed by "having been concentrated" is ungrammatical. The sentence makes perfect sense without "having been".
  • "A lighthouse located on the islands prior to Georges was partially submerged in the Gulf of Mexico, nearly 1,200 feet (370 m) from land." The wording is unclear. Does this mean that a lighthouse was bodily picked up and hurled 1,200 feet into the Gulf, or that the waters of the Gulf covered the island on which it was standing, leaving it 1,200 feet from land? We need a clearer picture of what happened.
  • It's not clear where the 80,000 "residences" that lost power were located. The previous sentence begins "In Orleans Parish..." – were all 80,000 there?
  • "blamed on" should be "blamed for"
  • I don't want to be funny, but "...medical conditions complicated by an evacuation" sounds, well, medical (and unpleasant). Could you rephrase to "medical conditions aggravated by the stress of the evacuation" or something similar?
  • "Including relief funds to Puerto Rico and Mississippi in association with Georges..." Awkward wording: try "associated with" or "arising from", rather than "in association with"
  • Is it possible to give a bit more information about the various costings referred to in the lead and Aftermath sections (both saying much the same thing at present)? For example, what does "paid losses" mean? $56 million was raised in relief funds - how was it raised, and who got it? What is the relationship of these relief figures to the $30.1 million estimated cost of damage?
  • My earlier comment about no-break spaces has not been addressed.

Otherwise, a tidy enough piece of hurricania. Brianboulton (talk) 16:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - the lead doesn't really summarize the article per WP:LEAD. The first half is dedicated to information that more or less rehashes the Background section, but it doesn't tell me anything about the topic of the article. I'd prefer to see a sentence or two of the background, and the rest of the lead summarizing the meat of the article. --Andy Walsh (talk) 20:47, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Anything else you want added into it? I'm just being on the cautious side since it's a short article and I don't want to put too much into the lead Cyclonebiskit (talk) 12:40, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Pleased with the writing. In view of the clarifications and changes at MoS concerning those dreadful unsized thumbnails, will you consider upsizing a few of the pics? There's interesting detail (potentially) in the satellite shot of the hurricane; but it's wasted in such a small pic, and all the hurricane article pics like that seem to be the same at that size. I can't make out much detail in the differences pics. Can they not be left–right adjacent to the rainfall chart? Already the text is a little squeezed down the middle, and bigger pics will require a reshuffling of locations. Tony (talk) 12:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think I've fixed the image size issue. On my computer, the images appear fine, I'm not sure what's happening with other computers. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 13:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, my issue with the lead was resolved. Prose looks good. --Andy Walsh (talk) 19:24, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I rarely support off the bat, but I made the necessary tweaks (please check) myself instead of listing them here; the article is quite good (and relatively interesting for a tropical cyclone). One question: "for the Ascension, Assumption, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Plaquemines, Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. James, and St. John the Baptist St. Tammany, Terrebone, Tangipahoa, and Washington Parishes." What's that first "and" for? Dabomb87 (talk) 02:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • That was just a listing error on my part. I've fixed it, thanks for the corrections and support. Same goes to Tony1 and Laser brain Cyclonebiskit (talk) 02:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • No image review? Text squeeze between images in "Impact" section. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with comments (please fix these first with emphasis on number 4 being absolutely necessary for FA status) - 1. I tried to check some sources and I got stuck behind having to sign up for stuff, so, I will AGF. 2. The last sentence of the 1st paragraph of the lead seems off - I would suggest: 'After nearly 1.5 million people were urged to evacuate coastal areas, officials described the evacuation as "probably the largest [...] we have ever achieved".[1]' 3. The semi-colon in the second paragraph seems off. Semi-colons connect two sentences that are thematically connected but there is little grammatical cohesion to warrant a semi-colon. 4. The image is against the main template in the "Background" section in violation of WP:ACCESS. Please move the image to below the template. 5. You never say who Mayer Morial is. 6. In "Impact" you use "impacts" as a noun, which seems inappropriate. You could switch to "damage", "destruction", or something similar. 7. The phrase "nearly 1,200 feet..." doesn't work with the sentence. You don't say which islands either. You could start the section dealing with the islands saying "The Chandelur Islands were nearly 1,200 feet..." then follow that with the lighthouse and other sentences. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changed the text per suggestions for your first three comments, as for the image comment, there has never been an issue with having a storm track near the infobox template in any other FAC, I'm not sure what makes this any different. Points five and six addressed. As for the last point, it's not talking about any of the islands being 1,200 feet out, it's referring to the lighthouse that was isolated from land. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 18:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • On point 4, Ottava was referring to the fact that the image preceded the {{main article}} template in the section order when it should be the other way around. I fixed that. Dabomb87 (talk) 18:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ah, well, that makes much more sense, thanks for taking care of it :) Cyclonebiskit (talk) 18:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was looking for a sentence to clarify "the islands" in "A lighthouse on the islands". "the" is used to specify a specific set of islands. It would be helpful to instead put a name of which islands. If there isn't a name, then use "on a set of islands" or "on some islands". Ottava Rima (talk) 19:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Images are all free, appear to have proper attribution, and appear fine. However, I would recommend that File:Georges1998rain.gif enlarged on this page as at 180px (the fixed size used in the page), the text on the image is unreadable. It's better at 300px (and per recent FAC/MOS discussion, images do not have to be thumb size but should stay under 400px). --MASEM (t) 17:11, 11 August 2009 (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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