Talk:Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes

Needs LOTS of Work!
Too much confusion between Guad-Nipomo Dunes and the Oceano Dunes SVRA. They are not one and the same! Instead, article needs to break out each of the sub-managed areas within the dune complex:
 * Guadalupe
 * National Wildlife Refuge
 * Dunes Lakes
 * SVRA
 * Pismo Dunes Preserve
 * Oso Flaco

The SVRA really should be it's own article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.215.49.21 (talk) 13:53, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

New to Wikipedia
If anyone could help us with this page that would be great!! We are writing this for our English class and at the same time trying to understand how Wikipedia works. We are excited to write about a topic that hasn't been addressed in Wikipedia, but do not know all the rules of Wikipedia yet. If you could help format this page and/or with referencing that would be greatly appreciated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Engl145 (talk • contribs) 00:10, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

instructor comment
Excellent lead. Comprehensive description and overview. Exemplary documentation style. It would aid consistency and accessibility of information to add links to all the agencies listed at end of lead.

Attractions: "Each year the park attracts 2 million visitors a year."

This section is well organized by geographic progression north to south. The items use a variety of sources for information that is presented concisely, clearly, with full documentation that shows no problems with paraphrase and quotation.

History: Interesting material, well organized and well written. Need citation for Ten Commandments paragraph.

Geography and Environment: Again, excellent material, good range of sources, good choice of what to include and leave out, nicely polished writing. Links to sources for notes 28 and 29 need to be reformatted to make them live--I think "http://" is missing.

Off-Road Vehicle Controversy: Excellent summary, boiling down the issue to easily understood positions.

Who is involved--this paragraph isnt directed toward the larger topic and its tone departs from NPOV

"Their concern" is fine, except check links and phrase "considerably small"

"Actions taken" admirably clarifies the legal niceties.

In Favor, who is involved...should California State Parks be included with OHV advocacy organizations? They tend to function that way, but this needs clarification.

"It has become a family ritual to many...will loose access to" proofread

"for their rightful presence" NPOV

"Oceano State Department" Isnt it California State?

"to address two issues having to do with the sale of the land.[55] To sell the property, four-fifths ..." What two issues?

Once the minor concerns listed here are resolved this becomes an excellent finished product. The extensive research, thorough documentation, clear writing, perceptive analysis, and disciplined neutral point of view make it a valuable contribution to human knowledge. I expect that you'll see it frequently referenced. Congratulations!

A

Rudolph2007 19:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Nice work. I rated it A-class (and also provided the Ten Commandments cite; I had originally written that paragraph, but back before we were rigorously citing everything).  Cheers, Antandrus  (talk) 03:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Controversy section
On the other hand, advocates for off-road vehicle usage argue that the State Park has allowed people to enjoy using vehicles on the Oceano Dunes for the past 100 years, with the county benefiting from the high revenues brought in by the Vehicular Recreation Area.
 * I don't believe this is accurate or even true. According to historians, off-road vehicle usage in this area wasn't common until the 1960s.  Furthermore, the portrayal of the so-called "controversy" as that of environmentalists who "feel" there is a significant impact and those who "feel" they have a God-given right to drive their off-road vehicles wherever they want is extremely misleading.  This has nothing to do with "feelings" and everything to do with evidence.  And the evidence shows that off-road vehicles in the dunes have destroyed the habitat.  It doesn't matter what anyone "feels".  This section gives the appearance of NPOV, and is carefully crafted to present both "sides", but a closer look reveals problems in the presentation and description of the so-called controversy.  Which is more important when it comes to standards of evidence: The feelings of groups who favor their interests, or scientific evidence?  All POV are not equal, and they should not be portrayed as such.  The person who wrote this cast the issue in terms of "beliefs and feelings" in a misguided attempt to portray all POV's as equivalent.  They aren't and shouldn't be.  What we have here is a classic case of undue weight, with too much of the article devoted to a manufactured controversy.  There is a lot of history here, and a great deal of it is natural history, much of which isn't even covered in the article.  With the addition of this information, the arguments for off-roading become laughable and boil down to: It's acceptable because it's a "family tradition", because we've doing it this way for a century, and because we like to have fun.  Those argument don't hold any weight, and should not be presented as if they are comparable to datasets showing the decline of multiple species of plants and animals due to vehicle use. Viriditas (talk) 11:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Viriditas (above) fatally ignores that only 9% of the dune complex is open to recreational use. Further, invasive plant species (i.e., Ammophila arenaria) are by far the superior threat to the environment over vehicle use. On the argument of vehicle usage, out of the many, many documents available I refer you to "Automobile Topics Illustrated" magazine, October 21, 1909. Same issue as the opening of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. San Francisco motorists are enthusiastic over the discovery of an ideal course which could be used admirably for speed contests of the highest type. The course is along the beach, midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and at low tide is twenty-one miles long and two city blocks wide. It is hard and smooth and eighteen automobiles can race abreast. The beach is known as Oceano, and lies just south of Port Hartford in San Luis Obispo County. This discovery by the racing community is, of course, long after casual day recreation using automobiles was well established. Furtive arguments about habitat and environment are often filled with words such as "destroyed" in void of any evidence. The dune complex appears today identically to 100 years ago, with the addition of many invasive plants put there by man. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.215.49.21 (talk • contribs) 3:53, 28 December 2010
 * It is a matter of historical record that Unocal Corporation spilled 18 million gallons of oil in the dunes. It is difficult to take anything you say seriously when the only thing you care about is whether you can drive your car on a beach. Viriditas (talk) 11:10, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * What does Unocal have to do with recreational vehicle use in 1909?

Largest, second largest, etc.
The opening line currently reads, "Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes is the largest remaining dune system south of San Francisco and the second largest in the U.S. state of California."

What dune system is bigger and what system is north of San Francisco? I don't know of any dunes north of San Francisco except in Oregon. Link to source is broken of course... Sudopeople (talk) 19:30, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

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