Wikipedia:Featured article review/Houston/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Casliber via FACBot (talk) 2:37, 16 February 2018 (UTC).

Houston

 * Notified: WikiProject Houston, WikiProject Cities, WikiProject Texas

Review section
I am nominating this featured article for review because...


 * There are statements failing verification from citations. Please see section on History, and section on Crime, as two examples.
 * There is much outdated material. Some material could be replaced with new data; other material should be retained and supplemented with new data. Another editor placed a request to update the Transportation section in 2016, but there has been little change since last year.
 * There is unsourced material in the History section.
 * The History section is not comprehensive. There is a main article History of Houston, but this has been largely unsourced for years. I recommend as a part of improving the Houston article to improve its context within Wikipedia relative to several important Houston-related articles. This would allow the main article to be comprehensive, but offering greater detail indirectly through links to related articles.
 * Some parts of the article have become a Christmas tree, with Houston's appearance on various rankings. Could these be updated or culled? Some segments reads like spare parts thrown together. Sometimes people just have a little factoid to post, and that is their contribution. Editing these segments to better unify the narrative would help.

These are several categories of issues with the Houston article, and this I compiled from a fairly cursory reading. As I continue to check citations, this list could grow.

However, I hope this is not too negative. There must have been a great effort and good work by many various editors to bring this article to FA back in 2007. This is more than ten years later and it appears that the article needs a comprehensive effort. For those Houstonians who are are still cleaning up after Harvey, or helping others doing the same, there could be nothing more important. But not everyone interested in improving the Houston article currently lives in the region. Thank you for reading, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 17:21, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Total area and land area The citation from 2009 cites a land area of a bit over 599 miles while the text reads 667 miles, which is given elsewhere as the total area.


 * Has the total area and land area increased since 2009?
 * What is the correct source for these figures?
 * Geography nerds: what is the correct denominator for population density: land area or total area? (Since people don't usually live on the water.)

In any case, the article and the citation disagree.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Lead section has old links Some citations link to articles from 2010, 2011, and 2012. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:18, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Land purchase, founding of Houston A statement in the History section is incorrect:


 * The sale of land from the Parrotts to the Allens did not occur on August 30. It was August 26, 1836
 * August 30, 1836 is the date that the Allen brothers first advertised their land scheme.
 * The Parrotts did not sell 1.5 leagues (6,642 acres) to the Allens. They sold a half league (2,214 acres).
 * The Parrotts did not sell land to the Allens in consideration of over $9,000. They sold it for $5,000.
 * Two days prior, on August 24, 1836, the Allens did buy one league (4,428 acres) for $4,428 from the estate of John Austin's brother. There is no indication that the Allens had plans for developing this land. This is difficult to source (original research) because this ended up being a convoluted transaction, and many writers try to simplify the story by combining the two transactions. Sometimes writers combined the two transactions incorrectly.

Second, when Houstonians claim that the city was founded August 30, 1836, the significance of this date is the famous advertisement that the Allen placed. For some reason, people attempt to attach other events to this date.

Sports: claim fails verification "It is the only MLB team to have won pennants in both modern leagues." The Astros just won their first AL pennant last month, but the sentence is followed by a citation to a web site last retrieved in 2013. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 02:23, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Infobox: area Perhaps there is are editors who have already vetted these numbers and who are still on Wikipedia. I know it is tempting for other editors to change one of the numbers in a way that renders the other number correct. Confession: A few years ago, I think I changed a total population number without changing the density number, for example. I apologize to those who were trying to keep the page in good order. In any case, these current numbers are inconsistent:

Area • City	 667 sq mi (1,625.2 km2)  (I have seen 599.6 elsewhere.) • Land	 639.1 sq mi (1,642.1 km2) • Water 667 sq mi (1,625.2 km2)  (I have seen 27-ish elsewhere.) • Metro 10,062 sq mi (26,060 km2)

Once these correct numbers are reintroduced, I would agree to monitor them for unhelpful edits. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 10:48, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Geography statement fails verification Houston:

"The Piney Woods are north of Houston. Most of Houston is located on the gulf coastal plain, and its vegetation is classified as temperate grassland and forest. Much of the city was built on forested land, marshes, swamp, or prairie which resembles the Deep South, and are all still visible in surrounding areas. The flatness of the local terrain, when combined with urban sprawl, has made flooding a recurring problem for the city."

Here is the archived link from the citation.

If I have read this correctly, this links to dry paper on the modeling of measurement of storm events, without any characterization of regional features or analysis of flooding. I agree with some of the statements, but this is not what the linked source talks about.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 11:58, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

FARC section

 * Moving to get some more opinions on the state of this article. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:30, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Delist&mdash;nobody seems interested in addressing the issues above. &mdash;Deckiller (t-c-l) 16:21, 5 February 2018 (UTC) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:37, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.