Talk:List of National Natural Landmarks in Michigan

Suggestions
Don't take this the wrong way...I'm a critical bastard, but at least I engaged with your topic. 12 items is fine for a starred list, but the topic needs development.

Lead seems short. Perhaps researching the individual landmarks more would come up with more content.

Prose is OK except for the first two sentences. And I do like having the explanation of the national landmark concept (needed).

First sentence feels awkward (like you are trying to get the bolded part early too hard). Why not just write a natural topic sentence like "Michigan has 12 national landmarks." (ditch the bolding...since this is a "X in Y" type article, it really is more tricky anyhow.) You could move the stuff about the 600 national ones down to the second para (fits better as it pertains to the overall concept nationally).

Second sentence feels flabby with adjectives. Several is not needed, nor is diverse...or really even "habitats". Unique is probably justified though. The other sentences have more real info, so be like them. Maybe mentioning how many are wooded (seems like 11 of the 12, just the string bog, no?) And that one of them has a beach...and how many are bogs and swamps?

I'm not sure about the table as the main method of showing information. I almost think having this be one of thoses lists that is more a collection of prose sections on the individual things would be better. A para or so on each place. You might still have a role for the table, but perhaps than without the image or descriptions fields.

Researching and adding columns for ownership and for area would be interesting. As I read your lead, those topics intrigued me...but then the article does not deliver details for each one.

Ditch the column on coordinates. It is way crufty and offputting to get them. No one can read them and intuitively tell where something is. And you have the hidden thing where people can download the coordinates.

The order for numbering seems cryptic also. Why not in chronological order? If it is location-based, then this is confusing when no map in article.

The images are incredibly tiny when put in table like this. For an animal or a flag or a face, those tiny thumbs work...but not for landscapes. You can't see a thing. the image field is even more narrow than the crufty coordinate field!

Get a picture for each landmark. This seems acheivable. And really, really desirable (a landmark has some biosensitive importance sure, but is much about a visual impact, really). Go take the pictures...or recruit Wikipeidans to do so. (you make more contribution to Wiki that way and that is the point of the Cup.)

Clean up the lead image (why show the Illinois county lines).

Actually, I kinda don't like having the lead image be just a graphic of the state of Michigan (what every list on Michigan just shows the state?) Why not show a picture of the most visually appealing landmark?

The Google and Bing maps are cryptically captions (coordinates of what? and it is not really coordinates, but a linked map.)  Also what is the 200? Also, when I go to that map (full screen), it just has numbers. totally took me a while to figure out what the numbers meant...are from your list...why not have names? Also having the links go back to your list instead of to the landmark articles themselves is not optimal.

Consider to have a map like this, that shows the locations of the parks in Michigan and is clickable. A graphic person will make it for you if you ask nicely. Not in lead, but lower down in the article. And yeah, you have the hidden Google map thing...but that is not as nice.

I don't think you should have to develop linked articles (that would never end!), but I recommend to make the small gesture of adding a "See also" link at the bottom of each of the Landmark articles, to this article of yours.

69.255.27.249 (talk) 03:04, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

P.s.   Oh...and don't schoolmarm me about ban-evading. I never take that Wiki user behavior stuff good from you. ;)