Wikipedia:Peer review/Arctic policy of Russia/archive1

Arctic policy of Russia
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I feel that it is approaching GA quality, and want some guidance on how to get it there. I'm getting to that point where I can't add much more content, and would like some pointers on where the article could use continued work or expansion. --Slon02 (talk) 20:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: I find this interesting but a little disjointed. Here are a few suggestions for improvement:


 * Since the lead is to be a summary of the whole article, it needs to say something about exploration.


 * The lead shouldn't include anything important that is not covered in the main text sections. I'd think about adding a "Geography" section just below the lead and including the material there about the Russian land mass, Arctic holdings, and shrinking eastern population. The names of the other countries with borders on the Arctic Ocean could go in the Geography section, and it would be nice if you could include the lengths of those borders. Also helpful would be a map showing the relationship of these countries to one another as well as the locations of places like the Kuril Islands, the Aleutian Islands, the Yamal Peninsula, and so on. Most readers will have no idea where most of the places mentioned in the article are.


 * The lead image shows the Russian seabed claims but lacks labels. I don't think you can assume that all readers will recognize Greenland and Russia and Alaska by their shapes, for example. The key is unclear. For example, "2500-m isobath" will mean nothing to most readers, and EEZ and ECS are unexplained.


 * The first sentence of the Exploration section gives credit to Uleb for the first recorded voyage to the Arctic. What about Viking voyages to Greenland and Iceland? See this list.


 * The first sentence of the "Territorial claims" section says "Russian territorial claims to the Arctic officially date back to April 15, 1926... ". Since Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, how can this claim be true?

Territorial claims
 * "The first maritime boundary, from the Varangerfjord, between the two countries was signed in 1957... ". - Which two countries? You need to make clear that it's Norway.


 * "wanted the boundary to be a line running straight north from the mainland, 67,000 square miles (170,000 km2) more than what it had... " - It's not clear what this means. A straight line running north from where to where? Even if we know where this line is, it does not by itself enclose an area. What other boundaries enclose the area you mean?

Economy
 * "Travel along Northern Sea Route takes only one third the distance needed to go through the Suez Canal, without as high a risk of pirates." - One third of the distance from where to where? This claim would not be true for every possible sea journey between a Russian port and a port elsewhere.


 * "This agreement includes a $3.2 billion hydrocarbon exploration of the Kara and Black seas... " - Better make clear that the Black Sea is not in the Arctic.

References
 * Some of the citations are incomplete. Citation to web sites, for example, should include author, title, publisher, date of publication, URL, and date of most recent access if all of those are known or can be found.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 16:34, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Newspaper names like The New York Times should appear in italics.
 * Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)