Talk:History of the Galveston Bay Area/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Jezhotwells (talk) 00:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

Checking against GA criteria

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   The article is currently rather poorly written, with clumsy convoluted sentences which change subject, frequent repetitious phrasing and poor grammar. I made some minor copy-edits but it would benefit from a thorough line by line copy-edit. There is a distinc lack of commas where needed, yet also we have a large number of over long sentences which need to be broken up.

   Some sample sentences which need reworking for clarity (but virtually every sentence needs looking at):

   A few small settlements such as Lynchburg, San Jacinto, and Campbell's Bayou (founded by one of Lafitte's former officers) were gradually established around the bay as well as the rest of Texas; but in 1824 the Mexican government forbade most settlements near the coast

   The shores of the bay were initially mostly home to farms and ranches such as the famed Allen Ranch situated between the growing metropolis of Galveston and the much smaller town of Harrisburg (in modern east Houston). For its part, the range land of Allen Ranch came to encompass much of the region near the bay south of the San Jacinto River.

   Much farther inland from the bay the towns of Harrisburg and Houston, both founded by New York entrepreneurs on the Buffalo Bayou, competed as commercial centers though neither was as significant as Galveston. Throughout the 19th century these three cities would develop increasing influence on the Bay Area communities (particularly as railroads were built later through the area).

   Texas succeeded in its bid to join the United States in 1845 which helped launch the Mexican-American War.

   Texas' annexation brought more people to Texas and ranching interests around the bay began to grow.

   Throughout the 19th century Galveston remained Texas' dominant metropolis and the communities around the bay were strongly tied economically and culturally to the city though, as Houston began to develop, so did the Bay Area's ties to it. This is virtually a repetition of the penultimate sentence of the previous section.

   During the American Civil War, in which Texas seceded from the United States, the area served a limited role in the conflict as new fortifications like Fort Chambers, near Anahuac, were constructed to ward off a mainland invasion by Union forces and to protect supply routes to and from Galveston. This sentence appears to contain an interior contradiction

   he no major battles were fought on the mainland shoreline the area saw extensive action as the conflict moved from the battles at Galveston through the area on to Harrisburg and Houston., as does this.

   Nevertheless ranching interests, particularly the Allen ranch, became major economic drivers in the area spawning many other economic enterprises such as hide processing plants and shipping concerns. Clumsy

   These railroads running along the southwest shore of the bay would spawn new communities such as Clear Creek (League City), Webster, and later Texas City consistency of tense - stick to simple past, it is clearer.

   Overuse of brackets throughout.

   Construction began on the Texas City seawall in seawall, which was completed in 1985, and the dike was further developed.

   Overuse of the word area throughout, try and find a few alternates.

   So please elist the help of someone to throughly copyedit this and improve the readability.

   The article would benefit from an infobox

   Lead: The history of the Galveston Bay Area, on the Texas Gulf Coast in the United States, goes back to the earliest days of Texas history and very much mirrors the development of the state as a whole. PLease improve - goes back?

   The area had its first significant settlements, such as San Jacinto and Anahuac, under Mexican rule in the early 19th century. Were the native american settlements not significant?

   As wealth emerged in Texas resorts and other tourist draws developed in the Bay Area. clumsy

   Structure OK Y

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   adequately referenced, references check out, RS

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   What archaeology has been done on the native aermican occupation? Could do with some more detail on this. [1], [2], [3] could provide some leads. Also what about the black history of the area? Y

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Rather biased towards recent white history.

5. It is stable. Y

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

OK, on hold for above concerns to be addressed. Please leace comments here. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

1. I believe that this article is now sufficiently improved to be worthy of GA status. Congratulations and thanks for your hard work. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:50, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Feedback

Thanks so much for the feedback. Some quick answers and queries:

• Infobox - Can you suggest an infobox template to use? I guess I could insert the Texas History infobox although since this article does not discuss statewide topics this seems inappropriate (I say this noting that I typically do not see infoboxes on most history articles for cities and regions).

1. • I was thinking of Template:Infobox settlement. You would only need the picture and a map, which would show the location withing USA or SE USA. Most of teh other fields could be left blank. But it is not neccessary for GA, just a suggestion.

Infobox settlement is for articles on the settlements themselves, not on subtopics like history. I believe the general thinking is that the reader would normally only come to this article as a result of reading the main article and, regardless, if they want information on geography and such they would go there. --Mcorazao (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• By "brackets" do you mean parentheses?

1. • Yes, that's what we called them in the UK, :-)

• Regarding the Native American population, frankly I have not found a whole lot but I can try to dig more if you like. My understanding is that the native settlements were very sparse with not much development. So nobody bothered to write a lot about them. More importantly, though, it is hard to find discussions about settlements in the Bay Area specifically. The literature typically broadly discusses the tribes along the coast without going into specifics about this area. So I'm not sure what I'm going to be able to say.

1. • OK, only a suggestion, I just wondered if there had been any archaeology.

No problem. I'll look a little more. Actually the one link that you sent regarding trading along the Buffalo Bayou was interesting (even though it is referring more specifically to an area outside of the scope of the article; but still close enough that it may be relevant). I had not seen anything that specific. The site is marginally authoritative but I'll see if I can dig up more. --Mcorazao (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• Regarding blacks, again the literature on this is thin. In general since there was not much in the way of plantations in this area during the earlier years I believe the number of blacks was small (even free blacks would have tended to go to the major population centers). Bear in mind that the area was always overshadowed to some degree by Galveston, Houston, and Harrisburg on either side of it. So when I find information on the Bay Area's history I'm usually teasing information from histories about Houston or Galveston. In many cases things that were true about those cities were probably true about the Bay Area as well, but I cannot simply assume that. I can try to insert some facts about blacks but, frankly, I think it is likely that I would only be able to come up with annecdotal information (e.g. the Yellow Rose).

1. • OK as per above, just a suggestion/question.

• "biased toward white history" - Is this a reflection of the amount of attention given to each racial group or are you pointing out something more specific?

1. • Just an observation. I personally try to make sure that history articles contain material about all groups. Again not a GA requirement, just an observation. As history is mostly written by white middle class academics, most history is about white middle class people and leaders. But we have to deal with the sources that we have got.

Understood. As I say, if we were instead talking about nearby Houston or Galveston then there is more that has been written. But there is no book entitled "History of the Bay Area" so details about this topic in general are hard to come by. And finding details about groups that the contemporary writers largely did not care about is even worse. --Mcorazao (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• "During the American Civil War, in which Texas seceded from the United States, the area served a limited role in the conflict as new fortifications like Fort Chambers, near Anahuac, were constructed to ward off a mainland invasion by Union forces and to protect supply routes to and from Galveston." - Where is the contradiction you are referring to? In any event I'll see about rewording for more clarity.

1. • I feel that the conjunction of the phrase the area served a limited role in the conflict with as new fortifications like Fort Chambers, near Anahuac, were constructed is somewhat contradictory. Limited role v new fortifications. Perhaps a rewording will clarify.

Thanks again!

--Mcorazao (talk) 18:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I have revised the article to address all of these concerns. I have also put out some requests for additional help with copyediting. Please feel free to review what I have and/or wait to see if other editors offer help in further improving the prose. --Mcorazao (talk) 16:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)