Wikipedia:Peer review/Polar exploration/archive1

Polar exploration

This article just went through the gauntlet of Wikipedia:Spotlight collaboration. Here is a before and after. Wowee. Anyways, sources should all comply with cite.php, and there are sections that have their own articles (i.e. Northwestern Passage). Enjoy, hoping to bring this on to be a GA or FA. JoeSmack ^Talk 00:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• "It is also a historical period" I dont see how since you said it dates back to 325 BCE. So how is roughly 1700 years a period?

The first sentence of the First Attempts section is this: "Some scholars believe that the first attempts to penetrate the Arctic Circle can be traced to ancient Greece and the sailor Pytheas, a contemporary of Aristotle, who, in c. 325 BCE, attempted to find the source of the tin that would sporadically reach the Greek colony of Massilia (now Marseilles) on the Mediterranean coast." ....who, in brief, got lost and went as far as iceland. That was the reference to 325 BCE. JoeSmack ^Talk 16:28, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Instances of "Some scholars/historians believe/think" should definetely be cited or an example of one notable scholar/historian be given.
• "he may have been the first Westerner recorded to penetrate the Arctic Circle." please state someone who thinks so otherwise the sentence sounds as analysis (which basically means original research to me)
• "1421 was not a peer reviewed work." is quite short, can it be merged or even deleted ?
• "before finally escaping the frozen seas" can it be reworded to sound more encyclopedic?

"For several months they suffered from scurvy, total darkness and madness before the frozen waters were reduced enough to navigate back home." - is this ok?

Yea sounds much better. The one before sounded like something from a novel. - Tutmosis 21:40, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• I added a cough*few*cough fact templates.

Anyway other than that, a wonderful article and I'm glad Spotlight turned out to be so effective. You guys should be proud. - Tutmosis 01:30, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh yea, the lead definetely needs works. It should summarize the article. Currently it just explains what polar exploration is and how old it is. - Tutmosis 01:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, WP:SPOTLIGHT will attempt to improve. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 03:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Ruhrfisch 02:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Well it's a decent start, but frankly this article needs more development. Here's a few comments that are hopefully of some use:

• The sentence "Even still, physical contact with some remote areas such as the Antarctica continent has only occurred in approximately the last hundred years" is a little vague. Could this be more concise?
• What is "journeying through these perils by sight"?
• The article states that, "Some scholars believe that the first attempts to penetrate the Arctic Circle..." But what about the Ipiutak remains that date back as far as 2550, including a Point Hope, Alaska village dating to ~600 B.C.E.[1]? I strongly suspect that non-western people were the first to explore the region above the arctic circle, and to actually live there.
• Why is there nothing about the Roald Amundsen expedition that was the first to the south pole, or the disastrous expedition of Robert Falcon Scott? C.f. South_pole#Exploration

Thanks. — RJH (talk) 17:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)