Wikipedia:Peer review/Shale oil extraction/archive1

Shale oil extraction

 * Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because there is an intention to re-nominate it for FAC. Hopefully the peer review will give some fresh ideas what should be done before the re-nomination.

Thanks, Beagel (talk) 09:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments from
 * You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
 * What makes the following reliable sources?
 * http://www.hubbertpeak.com/laherrere/OilShaleReview200509.pdf
 * Although hubbertpeak.com website itself probably can't to be considered as reliable source, the author of this article, Jean Laherrère, is a reputable petrochemist and oil shale specialist. His works are cited in other reliable sources, e.g. report by the European Academies Science Advisory Council. His reliability could be verified by Google Scholar search. Beagel (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/view/12494
 * I had also myself some douts about this source. I will remove it as this information is covered by other sources. Beagel (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=luKukIWzRIgC&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q=&f=false - Lulu is a vanity press, so what makes the author an expert under WP:SPS�?
 * Well, although this book is also provided y Google Scholar, it seems that this is the only publication by this author. The information seems to be accurate, but to be safe, I will listed it at the WP:RS/N for more comments. Beagel (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.shaleoilinfo.org/library/citizens/lukens2005Jul09.php
 * I will remove it as this information is covered by other sources. Beagel (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcsupply/7critchar7.html
 * I will remove it as this information is covered by other sources. Beagel (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Newspapers titles in the references should be in italics. If you're using cite news, use the work field for the title of the paper, and the publisher field for the name of the actual company that publishes the paper
 * References are formatted per your advice. Beagel (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Please spell out abbreviations in the notes
 * Could you please specify which abbreviation you exactly mean? Beagel (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 17:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much. Beagel (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is close to FA. It's seems comprehensive (to this general reader) and clear, stable, neutral, well-illustrated, and (with the exceptions noted by Ealdgyth above) well-sourced and verifiable. The images need alt text, and I have a few other suggestions, mainly related to minor prose issues and the Manual of Style.


 * The images need alt text, one of the requirements for FA. Alt text is meant to describe the images for readers who can't see them. WP:ALT has details.
 * I should probably elaborate by saying that the alt text is easier to write if you imagine a blind person hearing it read aloud by a machine. So saying something like "a schematic of ..." won't help the blind person. It's often the case that the alt text needs to be longer than the caption because the essential facts can be conveyed to a blind person only via words. Finetooth (talk) 20:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Will work with it. Any assistance is welcome. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

History
 * "A number of shale oil extraction technologies have been developed over a period of time and these are continously evolving." - More direct would be "Shale oil extraction technologies have been evolving since the 10th century."
 * Will work with the wording. It was the first description of the process from the 10th century, but shale oil was used already earlier, and accordingly it was extracted before the 10th century. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Process principle
 * "Shale oil extraction process decomposes oil shale and converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil — a petroleum-like synthetic crude oil." - Em dashes are unspaced in Wikipedia articles. Thus this should be "... shale oil&mdash;a petroluem-like synthetic crude oil". Ditto for any other em dashes in the article.
 * Done. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Classifications
 * WP:MOS suggests replacing lists with straight prose when feasible. I don't see any special reason for the bullets in this section. Also, WP:MOSBOLD suggests using bold very sparingly. Otherwise the effect is lost. Perhaps italics would be better for phrases like "By location" and "By heating method" since the table in this section has so much bolding.
 * Done. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Conduction through a wall
 * "Conduction through a wall technologies generally use fine particles." - Hyphenate to avoid confusion, thus: "Conduction-through-a-wall technologies generally use fine particles"? Or re-cast as "Technologies based on conduction through a wall generally use fine particles... "?
 * The second option is used. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Reactive fluids
 * "react with coke precursors (a chemical structure in the oil shale that is prone to form char during retorting but has not yet done so)." - Maybe "chemical structures" to match the plural "precursors"?
 * Done. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

ExxonMobil Electrofrac
 * "ExxonMobil's in situ technology uses electrical heating with elements of both–wall conduction and volumetric heating–methods." - Delete hyphens so that the sentence ends with " ...elements of both wall conduction and volumetric heating methods"?
 * Done. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Environmental considerations
 * "In some cases, oil shale mining requires the lowering of groundwater levels below the level... " - No need to link groundwater again here, but further down, you might link Bureau of Land Management.
 * Done. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * "of waste water per tonne of processed oil shale" - Metric ton, I assume. You might want to convert this to imperial (the primary system in this article) as well.
 * Done. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 20:07, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Will do in coming days. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Further Finetooth comment: I think Ealdgyth is referring to abbreviations like "USAEE/IAEE" in citation 29. Really common things like PDF and ABC are OK as is, but the ones not really familiar to most readers should be spelled out. I don't think there are many. Finetooth (talk) 20:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * USAEE/IAEE is replaced with full names. Beagel (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)