Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Grand Teton National Park/archive1


 * 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 Ian Rose 15:35, 28 June 2012.

Grand Teton National Park

 * Nominator(s): MONGO 14:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

After a more than a year off and on of editing, which has taken the article from this version to the one we have now, I feel it is near Featured Article in quality. The article is quite long but also quite comprehensive and is backed by extensive referencing. One thing which was important to convey without drowning out the rest of the article was the fight to have the park established and expanded, which went on for decades, so the history section is accordingly lengthy. This has been a collaborative effort and thanks to the outstanding Peer Review (see this link) by experienced copyeditor Frutti di Mare (who has assisted me on several other FAs) and experienced FA writer Mav, the core improvements were greatly fine-tuned. Frutti provided comments and did a lot of copyediting and Mav discussed the need to split the mountaineering section into a history and recreation section. As an aside, I also wrote over 100 stubs in support of this article and created daughter articles to try and keep this one streamlined. We're hoping the community has further suggestions which will help this article gain Featured status. Thank you!MONGO 14:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Update...due to NPS changes to their webuser interface, there are now a number of dead reflinks which I will correct here shortly.--MONGO 16:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Update...checklinks is showing 12 dead or weak links..I'll finish updating these in next 24 hours...thanks.--MONGO 18:22, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Comments by Ling
 * 2 instances of "are dominate". is this some topic-specific adj., or should it be "are dominant"?
 * "Efforts to exchange federal land from other areas for inholdings was still in the negotiation phase in 2012" An effort was, or efforts were? – Ling.Nut (talk) 14:29, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes...it should be dominant...as an adjective and it should be were or maybe that sentence needs a better cleanup. Thanks!--MONGO 15:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Comments by Mike Cline
 * Coordinates and reference were wrong. Probably a typo as it was just 1 digit off.  Corrected. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:53, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Good catch!--MONGO 16:03, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * In the Organized exploration ... section, I believe this paragraph is inaccurate: Organized exploration of the region was halted during the American Civil War but resumed when F. V. Hayden led the well-funded Hayden Geological Survey of 1871. Split into two divisions, the expedition explored Yellowstone under Hayden's leadership while a smaller group under James Stevenson explored the Teton region. Along with Stevenson was photographer William Henry Jackson who took the first photographs of the Teton Range.[9] The source link is dead and even a google search couldn't find a good link to the article.  There is no mention of a split in Yellowstone and the Great West-Journals, Letters and Images from the 1871 Hayden Expedition, Merrill (.ed), 1999.  I suspect if such a split did occur it was in a later Hayden expedition. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:06, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The Stevenson/Jackson split occured during the 1872 Hayden Survey. Am trying to find a source, but in All the Jackson photos of Grand Teton are dated 1872]. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:36, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I clarified and corrected this...here...how does that look? There is a reference for those three sentences one sentence later...--MONGO 18:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Don't know if you want to add this, but there was an organized expedition in the winter of 1876-77 by Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane through Yellowstone into Jackson Hole and down the Snake River. It was the first winter exploration of the Jackson area. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * This detail was in the article earlier, but since we couldn't phrase it well and the history section was already so long, we removed it..it can be added back...still dealing with url issues.--MONGO 16:46, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Mike, you can see the Doane mention in this version. To keep the history minimized we decided to omit the matter since it wasn't possible to cleanup the mention without going off on a tangent.--MONGO 18:39, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:44, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "on land that was traditionally a wintering location for the tribe" - source?
 * rephrased and now sourced
 * "The park is not noted for large waterfalls; however, 100-foot (30 m) high Hidden Falls just west of Jenny Lake is easy to reach after a short hike" - source?
 * reference now added
 * "Precambrian rocks in Jackson Hole are buried deep under comparatively recent Tertiary volcanic and sedimentary deposits, as well as Pleistocene glacial deposits." - source?
 * source added
 * "as plans are made to possibly build a new facility" - source?
 * I updated this information and added a reference
 * Use p. for single pages, pp. for multiple
 * done...shall have to remember to check these better in the future.
 * FN11: range needs dash
 * done
 * Check formatting of quotes within quotes in titles
 * Saw that..thanks...and it's adjusted
 * Be consistent in how editions are notated
 * Done...I think
 * Be consistent in how multi-author works are notated
 * adjusted one I saw. Primary is last name then first name, seconday authors always first then last names...will double check
 * Better, only issue now is with 3+ authors (whether you use "and" or just punctuation). Nikkimaria (talk) 00:53, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I removed "and" from the only two references with this issue.
 * FN58 and similar: suggest using "at" parameter instead of page
 * Done
 * FN68 and similar: chapter title should use dash, not hyphen
 * FN76: volume isn't edition
 * adjusted this
 * Be consistent in whether author initials are punctuated
 * This was tough, but I think I have it now. I removed most initals after rechecking the references and added real first names as I could.
 * FN130: ISBN leads to this source, which partially matches the citation given - can you verify?
 * I updated this reference with chapter, the author of the chapter, a url link and moved added the editor. It's an annual journal with chapters written by various mountaineers discussing climbs made.
 * What makes this a high-quality reliable source? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:44, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * on your last point, I simply took the ref and sentence ending out as it is not significant (my responses all italicized)MONGO 14:18, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Nikkimaria...still working on your points above...MONGO 11:15, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Support now, Comments by PSKY
 * Image check. Licenses look good. most are National Park Service or released by owner, several are stunning, two are featured pictures...but the barn seems to be called both the John Moulton Barn and Thomas Moulton Barn. Do you know why? Just curious....
 * Corrected..it's Thomas
 * Then why do some people call it John? Pumpkin Sky  talk  21:05, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I am glad you have brought this up. Apparently there are two barns, both very similar in appearance. I'll get to the bottom of this naming issue within 24 hours.MONGO 11:15, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * According to the NRHP documentation (all 332 pages of it), it's the John Moulton Barn as the photo itself describes. The T.A. Moulton barn has a different roof shape, confirmed by a HABS survey of the T.A. Moulton place.  created the T.A. Moulton article and someone else added the image: I'm investigating whether it can be moved to the correct title and re-linked to the GRTE article.   Acroterion   (talk)   14:41, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I've gotten it sorted out and inserted the appropriate image into T.A. Moulton Barn from HABS.  The John Moulton Barn description is correct for the featured image.   Acroterion   (talk)   16:00, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Super! So the name on this article was correct but it was the wrong image in the T.A. Moulton Barn page...thank you so much for helping with this.MONGO 16:42, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * WOW. So my innocuous question led to the correction of a photo identity error? TA's barn is a straight slant roof, John's is has a bend in it, otherwise they are very similar. They must be very close to one another as the moutain peaks in the background are identical. Pumpkin Sky   talk  20:58, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Exactly and thanks again for bringing this up. I read the two barns are .3 mi away from one another, and they do look a lot alike, but if you check out this link, you'll see (now that I've doubled checked this too) that the John Moulton Barn and T.A. Moulton Barn do have some structural differences...but its the mountains which capture the image really, so it would be easy for many to make an incorrect assumption on those barns...oops!--MONGO 01:47, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * So 0.3 miles apart, they're neighboring farms no doubt. Pumpkin Sky  talk  23:59, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Ref numbers...are not all in sequence, such as "Davey Jackson.[17][13]", "Whooping Crane.[98][97]"
 * Got those...anymore...I'm going blind
 * PDF refs...ref 2 does not have the PDF parameter, others do. Pls make consistent. Can you make them all UC as shown in Template:Cite_web?
 * I think I got those all..all PDF links should have uppercase PDF now
 * You missed one ;-) I fixed it. Pumpkin Sky  talk  21:11, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you...MONGO 11:15, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Refs 103, 104, 106 have month and day. Where's the year? Also they have single digits without leading zero but other refs have leading zero (such as 118). 86 and 89 has no leading zero too. Pls make consistent if have leading zero or not have them.
 * Will look at over next 48 hours
 * Went and dropped the "0"...think I got the dates straightened out
 * missed a space, I fixed it Pumpkin Sky   talk  21:11, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Is there a reason retrieve dates are YYYY-MM-DD and other dates are Month Day, Year? The pattern does seem consistent though.
 * Just a habit...helps me better differentiate between when the ref was accessed and when the ref was updated at the source..I guess
 * Refs 102 ND 143 are missing PDF parameter.
 * Done
 * Ref 95 should be p. not pp.
 * Done
 * ...will continue looking over. Pumpkin Sky   talk  00:20, 5 June 2012 (UTC)  Pumpkin Sky   talk  00:51, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments! I will resume effort over next day or two--MONGO 03:59, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Support This article is comprehensive, well-written, and more than adequately referenced. I'm still concerned about length since it is a long read but that is a minor quibble given the complexities of the park's founding. --mav (reviews needed) 21:45, 10 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Support – Most of my concerns were addressed and I think this article satisfies the FA criteria. Nice work! Regards, RJH (talk) 18:30, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment – a few concerns:


 * There are numerous instances of the non-restrictive "which clause" that should be preceded by a comma or changed to 'that'.
 * Thank you for pointing this out. I have gone and adjust them all I believe
 * "...rocks found in the park are the oldest found...": double use of "found".
 * Yes...eliminated the unneeded "found"
 * "Noted for world-class trout fishing...": what is "world-class" trout fishing? Perhaps "world-renowned" is what is intended?
 * I changed this to world-renowned as suggested
 * "One of the tools is of a type associated with the Clovis culture which existed 11,500 years ago": this sentence seems awkward.
 * It had bad flow so I altered this one as well.
 * "...were known within their culture as the "Sheep-eaters" or "Tukudika" as they referred to themselves...": please fix the redundancy.
 * Take a look if you can as I think I have this better worded now
 * "The Colter Stone has not been authenticated to have been created by John Colter and may have been the work of later expeditions to the region": seems awkward. How about: "The Colter Stone may have been created by John Colter or by a subsequent expedition to the region"?
 * This I did not change. I didn't want to go off on a tangent and make the history section even more extensive, but the issue regarding the Colter Stone is that there is disagreement as to whether it was carved by John Colter, and therefore authentic, or if it was done by later expeditions...the key word here is "authentic" that I can't seem to get around without.
 * "...many of the place names to some of the mountains and lakes...": which is it, many or some? Or do some of the mountains and lakes have many place names?
 * Adjusted for better flow
 * "Main article: Teton Range" and "Main article: Canyons of the Teton Range" should be combined into a single main article statement. See Main.
 * Done and thanks for pointing that out
 * "...from corresponding rock layers in it": some ambiguity.
 * I went and removed that piece
 * "A great deal of erosion..." is vague. I think you can lose the "A great deal of" here.
 * Reworded as suggested and made further adjustments
 * "...period of global cooling known as the Ice Age": here, "the Ice Age" is colloquial usage. The "last glacial period" would be more concise.
 * I added Quaternary glaciation since the Tetons and Jackson Hole have apparently experienced several glaciations that created the landscape and not just the most recent one, but Ice Age was vague.
 * "which is the smallest bird species in North America as well as the Trumpeter Swan": please address the ambiguity.
 * I reworded this and think it flows better now. I also moved up other waterfowl to keep Trumpter swans and other waterfowl mentions together
 * Some mention of overflight restrictions would be good, particularly with regard to the Jackson Hole Airport.
 * I added more about this aspect as well as a solid reference
 * Otherwise the article looks pretty good and I'm in favor of its promotion to FA status. Regards, RJH (talk) 19:39, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Good eyes! I had forgotten about restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses and your other comments here are most helpful. Thank you!--MONGO 00:45, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You can see the changes I made to address your concerns here.--MONGO 00:47, 13 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Support. I love MONGO's national park articles. They're always well researched, and so is this. The prose is pleasing and reader-friendly, further improved by the reviewers here, and the structure is clear and appropriate. Disclosure: I peer reviewed the article, with many a nitpick, and MONGO promptly addressed all my concerns, so I really can't think of anything more to complain about at this stage. Also I did some copyediting, so feel free to disregard my support if I'm considered too involved. There was little enough to it, though — I'm abysmally ignorant of the subject and its vocabulary — I'm not even American — so my editing has necessarily been rather superficial. People like me get to painlessly learn a lot by reading an article like this, though; not just about the Yellowstone area and the Rockies, but American history altogether.  Frutti  di  Mare  20:02, 14 June 2012 (UTC).


 *  Comments Support on prose and comprehensiveness grounds, only one minor quibble - no deal-breakers prose-wise found. I'll jot queries below: Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:50, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * when the first nomadic hunter-gatherer Paleo-Indians would migrate into the region during warmer months in pursuit of food and supplies - why not simply "migrated" here?
 * I think I was trying to include the reason they migrated...MONGO 13:56, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "Would" works well for me. "Would can also be used for the imperfective aspect in past time. In the sentence "Back then, I would eat early and would walk to school...." "would" signifies not the conditional mood, but rather, repeated past actions in the imperfective aspect (specifically, habitual aspect)." Simply "migrated" sounds more like they went there once and for all, and then the reader comes up with something of a bump against the realization that it happened during warmer months, and so presumably every year, and so was in fact iterative and habitual, not a one-time event... better make that clear right away, with a "would", to my sense. On the other hand, if the nuance of "would" is only clear to grammar nerds like me, perhaps shorter (i. e. "migrated") really is simpler. Frutti  di  Mare  20:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC).
 * You're right Frutti - serves me right for scanning pages too quickly :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:33, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Spotchecks
 * Article: In 2001, the Rockefeller family donated what remained of its JY Ranch for the establishment of the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve, dedicated on June 21, 2008.
 * Source: The Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve is the former JY Ranch and served as a longtime summer retreat for the Rockefeller family.
 * I can't see the 2001 donation mentioned here.
 * Updated a bit...the intent to transfer the property was made public in 2001, officially transfered in 2007 and the location was dediacted in 2008...added a source.--MONGO 17:16, 24 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Article: During the latter decades of the 20th century, extremely difficult cliffs were explored including some in Cascade and Death Canyons and by 2000, more than 800 different climbing routes had been established on the various peaks.
 * Source: Today one has a choice of some 80 routes and variations to the summit, with 15 more available on the adjacent Enclosure.
 * I can't see 800 routes mentione din the source and the exploration of cliff's in the late 20th century.
 * It's on the backjecket of the book...which indicates 800 routes are documented in the book "A Climber's Guide to the Teton Range"...the climbs in Death Canyon started in earnest in the mid 1970s and new routes were explored over the next several decades. I updated the info and added a reference...I am not familiar with embedded notes within references to clarify this, so I listed two different pages from that source in one reference.--MONGO 17:51, 24 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Article: Efforts to exchange federal land from other areas for inholdings were still in the negotiation phase in 2012.
 * Source: Congressional wrangling has choked off the preferred funding source for the U.S. Interior Department’s planned purchase of state-owned inholdings in Grand Teton National Park. While Wyoming and federal officials say they still have a year to find $11 million to complete the purchase of a parcel near the Snake River, they have not yet figured out how to raise the money.
 * No issues.
 * Thanks for checking!


 * Article: The kettles were formed when ice situated under gravel outwash from ice sheets melted as the glaciers retreated.
 * Source: Material deposited by streams issuing from a glacier is called outwash; the sheet of outwash in front of the glacier is called an outwash plain. If the terminus is retreating, masses of old stagnant ice commonly are buried beneath the outwash; when these melt, the space they once occupied became a deep circular or irregular depression called a kettle...
 * No issues.
 * Thanks for checking!


 * Article: Sixty-one species of mammals have been recorded in Grand Teton National Park.
 * Source: (See List of Mammals) 61 are listed.
 * No issues.
 * Thanks for checking!


 * Article: In a study published in 2002, the Snake River was found to have better overall water quality than other river systems in Wyoming, and to have suffered virtually no anthropogenic pollution.
 * Source: a few anthropogenic sources, such as campgrounds, septic systems, and cultivated lands, do exist in the basins. Concentrations of trace metals and pesticides were low in samples collected from the Snake River.
 * I can't see where it says the overall water quality is better, and how does "virtually no" in the article reconcile with "low" in the source? Graham Colm (talk) 13:32, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll attend to this in the next day or two...thank you for checking things out.--MONGO 17:51, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I read the source as saying the Snake River has better water quality than other rivers in Wyoming...I adjusted the wording from "virtually no" to low impacts as per the source.MONGO 14:45, 25 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.