Wikipedia:Peer review/Somerset Levels/archive1

Somerset Levels
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because it has been a Good Article for years and I've always intended it to get to FA. I've run checklinks, dablinks etc & can cope with most of the technical requirements, but would appreciate advice primarily on the text.

Thanks, &mdash; Rod talk 19:04, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is quite interesting, nicely illustrated, probably comprehensive, and well-sourced. It falls somewhat short of meeting the FA requirements on two counts, I would say. The lead is not a true summary and needs to be re-written, and I noticed so many small errors of prose, syntax, and grammar that I think the article could use another copyedit. I fixed quite a few small things (hyphens, en dashes, caption glitches, and so on) as I went, but I'm sure I did not catch everything. You might find another willing set of eyes via WP:PRV or WP:GOCE. I also think the article would be more inviting to a wide audience if it included a map of the region.

Lead


 * The existing lead is more like an introduction that a true summary of the whole article. For example, it does not summarize the "Human habitation" or "Tourism" sections, and it seems to include information (percentage of grassland, for example) that does not appear in the main text. My rule of thumb is to try to include in the lead at least a mention of the main text sections and not to include anything important that does not appear in the main text. WP:LEAD has the guidelines.


 * "but also includes the south east of Mendip district. Approximately 70% of the area is grassland and 30% is arable." - Hyphen in "south-east" and "percent" (with a no-break code between the digits and the word) instead of "%"?


 * "only if wetland fens were created again" - Link fen?


 * The lead image might look better at 300px.


 * Would it be helpful to say where in England this is; that is, south-west, and what large body of water the rivers empty into; that is Bristol Channel, Celtic Sea, Atlantic Ocean?


 * A map of the region would be helpful. File:Somerset UK locator map 2010.svg is a possibility. Or maybe File:Bristol channel detailed map.png, though there may be even better illustrations of the area.


 * Could coordinates be added for a central point or, essentially, the midpoint of the region?

Geography
 * "The Levels are a coastal sand and clay barrier about 6 metres (20 ft) above mean sea level (roughly west of the M5 motorway) whereas the inland Moors can be 6 metres (20 ft) below peak tides and have large areas of peat, which was laid down during the Quaternary period since the melting of the last ice sheets, in these inland basins particularly in the Brue Valley." - This sentence is too complex. Suggestion: "The Levels are a coastal sand and clay barrier about 6 metres (20 ft) above mean sea level (roughly west of the M5 motorway). The inland Moors can be 6 metres (20 ft) below peak tides and, particularly in the Brue Valley, have large areas of peat laid down during the Quaternary period after the ice sheets melted."


 * "The geology of the area is that of two basins mainly surrounded by hills... " - The description in the rest of this sentence seems to be of the area's topography rather than its geology. Maybe "The area's topography consists of two basins mainly surrounded by hills... "?


 * "The area is prone to winter floods of fresh water and occasional salt water inundations which have occurred, the worst of which in recorded history was the Bristol Channel floods of 1607, which resulted in the drowning of an estimated 2,000 or more people, with houses and villages swept away, an estimated 200 square miles (518 km2) of farmland inundated and livestock destroyed." - Too complex. Delete "which have occurred"? Break long sentence into two sentences?

Drainage
 * Groups of words like "8th century" or "7th millennium" should be held together by no-break codes to keep them from being awkwardly separated by line-break on computer screens. WP:NBSP has details.


 * "In 1632 Charles I sold the crown's interest in the scheme, and it was taken over by a consortium including Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch drainage engineer, but the start of the work was delayed by the English Civil War, and later defeated in parliament due to local opposition." - I might break this one into two sentences also.


 * Internal Drainage Boards doesn't need to be linked again in the last paragraph and could be replaced by IDBs.

Human habitation
 * "In prehistory it is thought that, due to winter flooding, humans restricted their use of the levels to the summer... " - More logical would be "It is thought that, due to winter flooding, humans in prehistory restricted their use of the levels to the summer... "


 * "started to construct wooden track ways" - Link trackways as a single word rather than two words?

Willow
 * "It has become in 30 years the first artists' charcoal manufacturer in Europe." - Would "leading" be better than "first" since "first" might be taken to mean the earliest.

Biodiversity and conservation
 * "282 mink (Mustela vison) have been captured... " - Wikipedia avoids starting sentences with digits. I usually re-organize the sentence rather than spelling out large numbers, though that is another possible solution.


 * "The proposed line will carry 400,000 KV of electricity " - Spell out, abbreviate as kV, and link to something like Electric power transmission?

Somerset Levels Project
 * "when they won the ICI Award" - What does ICI stand for?

Tourism
 * "Visitors' centres that aim to convey various aspects of the Levels." - Not a complete sentence.


 * The last parts of the "mud horse fishing" paragraph need a source or sources.


 * I see some overlinking here and elsewhere. I don't think you need to link common words like "sheep", "poultry", or "orchard" or to link words like "peat" more than once in the article.

See also
 * Since North Somerset Levels is linked in the main text, I don't think you need to list it in the "See also" section. Ditto for The Fens and anything else that is already linked in the main text.


 * I'd move the portal and the Commons link to an "External links" section.

References
 * Citations 56 and 57 have nonconforming date formats. There may be others in other citations; I didn't check them all closely. The date formatting in the Ref section should be consistent throughout.

Images and licenses
 * The images look good, and all of the image licenses look fine to me. I checked them all.


 * File:Glastonbury (part of) from the tor arp.jpg overlaps two sections and displaces an edit button. I would simply move it up into the "Human habitations" section.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR; that is where I found this one. I don't usually watch the PR archives or check corrections or changes. If my comments are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 19:43, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all the really helpful comments. I've dealt with some of them & will return to others - particularly the lead. I have also asked for help in creating a suitable map.&mdash; Rod talk 22:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all comments. Lead has been expanded & the whole article has been copyedited by User:Malleus Fatuorum. I shall close this PR & hope to nominate it at FAC in a few days.&mdash; Rod talk 20:46, 20 January 2011 (UTC)