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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lake Burley Griffin/archive1

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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 kept by Raul654 03:03, 3 August 2009 [1].

Lake Burley Griffin

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Review commentary

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Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lakes, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australia, User talk:Ta bu shi da yu.

FA from 2004, referencing/1c issues throughout. Could use copyedit/review for flow, check for comprehensiveness, and review of images (14 images in article). Cirt (talk) 12:32, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • The article has comprehensiveness issues which I wasn't aware of at the time, but picked up in later research. There needs to be an entirely new section of the history covering before it was built - there were quite substantial political battles over the design of the lake, and the entire basin near the museum and the university was nearly not bueilt so as to save the sporting fields and racecourse that were on the site at the time. (The article doesn't even mention that they were there.) I also think the layout of the article isn't great - some strange sections, some quite short sections, and lots of dot points. It doesn't flow all that well either. Rebecca (talk) 13:51, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dot points all gone YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've done that YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 00:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I dunno. Perhaps you could write a list of things that are missing... Bilby (talk · contribs) completely rewrote two things on the run while they were on FAR last year. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 00:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Things that the article really needs to mention:
The early proposals for the lake: the Griffin plan, and how this was altered to form the current one. This would probably require hitting up books on Canberra history.
What was on the site of the lake before it was built (among other things, sporting fields, the first Canberra racecourse, I think it may have also flooded part of what was the suburb of Westlake.)
The political battles fought over the final design. There was serious opposition from within parliament about everything that was to be flooded, and the entire basin over near ANU and the Museum was very nearly removed from the plan. The NLA's online newspaper archive would be okay for this I think; the Canberra Times of the period covered this in quite some detail.
How this was resolved - unfortunately the disputes ran past the end of currently public domain newspapers at the end of 1954 so this isn't online.
The lake naming issue (which is referred to in passing in this article at the moment).
Development along the shores over the years (High Court, Royal Canberra Hospital, National Museum, etc.); fit the implosion in somewhere
Most of these accounted for. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 02:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Modern-day development - the Kingston Foreshore (which has actually altered the shape of the lake)
Besides history, it strikes me that a section about the lake and surrounds for public events might be warranted too. Rebecca (talk) 06:35, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The book by Eric Sparke that I cited in Canberra and this article has about 20 pages on the planning and changes, but not so much on the local amenities type stuff, which is why I could only cite a few things with the current focus of the article when I tried to change it last year. It should be useful and more than thorough enough, I checked ANU, Melb, USyd, UNSW, Adelaide they all have it and chances are every other uni has it as well YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 06:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sparke, Eric (1988). Canberra 1954–1980. Australian Government Publishing Service. ISBN 0-644-08060-4.

Other things that need fixing:

  • The safety section needs to be put into prose, and quite possibly shortened; it's a little bit irrelevant compared to much of the other information
Shortened by removing repetition and merged into recreation as it relates to swimming/boat accidents not crime or water poisoning YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "lakeside recreation" section needs to be cleaned up - the subheadings don't work well, and it should integrate public activities on the lake shore
  • "Captain Cook Memorial" should be in a "Features of the lake" or similar section, along with islands, bridges, the Carilion, etc - this would eliminate a lot of the article's flow problems caused by all sorts of random sections
  • "Water quality" is a stub of a section, and looks messy. Perhaps this could form part of a broader environment section, and be mixed with information about fish and bird life in the lake
Fish/aquatics and water pollution are together YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead is also quite short for featured articles these days
Expanded a bit YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Design" could do with a paragraph or so on the final proposal for the lake, and a description of the various basins, etc.

If these more stylistic problems were dealt with, it would start to look a lot more salvageable in terms of featured status. Rebecca (talk) 12:12, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Great job on this round of changes - the article is much improved.

  • Under "Walter Burley Griffin's design", there's mention of a casino. I have no idea what this is referring to - the wording is a bit vague.
  • Where would the removed eastern lake have been in terms of modern-day Canberra?
Added Fyshwick YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would like to see some more sources used for the history. While the basics are generally covered, it feels like there's a fair bit of potential detail missing - that only one source has been used shows.
  • From "Construction" down, the organisation of the article is very strange. It integrates the sections describing what is there now, with new information about their construction, and it doesn't fit together well. I still think "Bridges" might be better off in a "Lake features" section, along with the former Captain Cook Material section, which seems to have mostly disappeared. This would leave what's left more tightly focused on the actual construction.
  • Not a big fan of the remaining list. This feels like engineeringcruft to me.
Prosified. It is discussed in detail in the official governement report, so I think it should be mentioned YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the "Dam" section should be merged into "Final layout", and that this section should be emphasisised a bit more, considering it is the design that actually got built and now forms the basis for the lake.
  • I think the "Lake as city centrepiece" section is a bit odd - the title implies that it's describing the lake now, but it's really a history section. I think calling it something like "Recent history" or "Modern history" might be better. I think this section could be fleshed out more. It also doesn't mention the Kingston Foreshore, which in turn doesn't make much sense unless you mention the almost industrial area that was there before it.
Evolved into history. Kingston added. Nick-D added stuff on the Immigration bridge YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tweaked to "Later development into...."

In spite of all of this, much improved - nice job! Rebecca (talk) 06:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of article structure, my suggestion would be:

  • Design - take the final layout section, blow it up, so it doesn't immediately launch into history - same was it was before the latest rewrite
  • Design history
  • Construction
  • Modern history
  • Features of the lake
  • Recreation
  • Environment Rebecca (talk) 07:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is mostly the way it is now. Still hoping for more comments. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox: I tried to complete it from the article: catchment area (1865 km² according to [2][3] or 2100 km² if Molonglo catchment of 78,000 ha is 37% [4]) and residence time (0.2 years [5]) are still missing. I'm sure better references are available. -- User:Docu 14:29, 1 June 2009 (UTC), updated 14:41, 1 June 2009 (UTC)


One further thing - what happened to the images? The tiny image in the infobox looks awful, all of the new content is bereft of images, and then there's a cluster at the bottom, none of which are all that great general views of the lake. Rebecca (talk) 12:14, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The image in the infobox is probably better in the panoramic images section (File:Twilight canberra as seen from telstra tower observation deck.jpg). It's too wide for the infobox. Maybe a cropped version of File:Canberra view from telstra tower.jpg would fit the infobox.
There is a discussion on Talk:Scrivener_Dam#Which_image_where about the images in that article. -- User:Docu
I'm not a fan of that image either. Of the ones in the article, either the one of the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge or the Captain Cook Fountain would be better. The article could do with some pictures taken from less strange locations, though - from the National Capital Exhibition across the lake, or of the National Museum from the other side, or from the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, would be much better photos. Would also be nice to have a picture of the Kingston Foreshore. Rebecca (talk) 14:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at an old version of the article ([6]), all of these images were originally a lot larger, and they, and the article, looked much better for it. Even fixing this up would help things a lot. There's also a dumped image [7] which looks better, IMHO, than several of the ones currently there. Rebecca (talk) 14:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did some sorting over at commons (Commons:Category:Lake Burley Griffin and Commons:Lake Burley Griffin). As commons seems a bit slow today, I didn't categorize more of the available images [8].
A few larger panoramas are now at Commons:Lake Burley Griffin. Now that there are imagemaps, we could probably make one that replaces File:Lake burley griffin from telstra Tower2.jpg.
Any selection that illustrates the article's sections and gives an overview of the various parts of the lake and its surroundings, .. is fine with me.
Some of the differences in size might come from the removal of the image sizes from thumbnails. Normally, one would use "thumb" and leave the scaling to the individual users preferences. -- User:Docu
All of these photos are pretty rotten. The larger pictures are really amateurish and taken from too far away, and the close-up ones don't show anything significant of the lake. They're of random stretches of water, and despite living near the lake for four years, I have no idea where they were specifically taken. There's so many good scenic vistas there, but even if we can't get new ones, we have the larger ones that were there before. I have no idea if the change you suggested caused the tiny images, but any image formatting that makes them look like crap in an ordinary browser is probably not good in a featured article. Rebecca (talk) 15:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can take some pictures at specific points you might like to nominate, perhaps waiting for a sunny day.--Grahame (talk) 02:03, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That would be fantastic if you could. We just need a couple of good shots of the lake that aren't taken from somewhere Mt Ainslie, or closeups of some obscure point on the lake. The points I suggested might be useful, but anywhere where we can get a decent shot with a few landmarks would be great. Rebecca (talk) 04:13, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a map of images at commons that have been geocoded. Not too many based compared to the number of images available at commons and compared to the number of Wikipedia articles listed. -- User:Docu
Thanks for this - that's a great little resource. This image was, I'm sure of it, in the original nomination, and it's the sort of one we should have in the infobox. Rebecca (talk) 04:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There's a stack of photos on related articles that you can plunder. To be honest I don't care about picture quality much (or lack of pictures full stop) YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 05:02, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've added some pics at commons, some are a little dark, but there are a couple of cute pics of black swans feeding at the SIEV X memorial.--Grahame (talk) 13:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One of the reasons the layout is a bit "short" is because the layout is already discussed in terms of alterations to the original plan, which is all in the history. Reiterating it all could be a bit repetitive YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Alt refs added side by side YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Article looks much better, great work on recent improvements. Might be worthwhile for someone to stub the redlinks and make some of them blue with a couple WP:RS/WP:V sources:
  1. Immigration Bridge
  2. Acton Peninsula
  3. Royal Canberra Hospital
  4. Kings Avenue
  5. Sullivans Creek
  6. Jerrabomberra Creek
  7. Kingston Foreshores Development
  8. Kingston Powerhouse
  9. Regatta Point, Canberra
  10. Black Mountain Peninsula
  11. Yarralumla Yacht Club
Just a suggestion. :) Cheers, Cirt (talk) 08:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Immigration Bridge, Acton Peninsula, and Royal Canberra Hospital could all do with articles. Kings Avenue should be at Kings Avenue, Canberra. I think Sullivan's Creek probably warrants an article; raised quite a few engineering challenges in the early days and has been the source of pollution controversies more recently; not sure about Jerrabomberra Creek. The Kingston Foreshore link should be titled either Kingston Foreshore or Kingston Foreshore Redevelopment (actual names). Someone recently wrote an article on the Canberra Glassworks; I'm not sure if a seperate article could be written on the Powerhouse, so a piped link might be okay there. Regatta Point and Black Mountain Peninsula need articles; Yarralumla Yacht Club is probably non-notable. Rebecca (talk) 15:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
All created. Except Regatta Point, it's just a thing inside Comm Park unless I am mistaken but some Canberran intervene as I don't know. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that was a quick response, awesome! Cirt (talk) 07:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They were mostly a bunch of mickey (monkey) mouse 3-liners. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is immensely improved over where we started out. It still has problems with not seperating history from describing the current state of the lake very well; the bridges and dam sections, despite being in the middle of the construction section, arent really about the construction, and some important lake features, like the Captain Cook Memorial, are only mentioned in the context of stuff-that-was-built-in-the-70s. This means that key landmarks adjoining the lake which aren't necessarily necessarily notable in a historical sense - like the National Capital Exhibition, or on the other side of the lake, that it practically fronts on to Russell Hill, are not mentioned. Speaking of things adjoining the lake, it mightn't hurt to work Blundell's Cottage into the early history somewhere. I still think a "features of the lake" section would make all this a lot more coherent. Rebecca (talk) 15:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other niggly things: The couple of sentences describing the criticism of the lake's construction are a light on detail, generalising and only use one source. "Later history and development of the lake into a city centrepiece" is an awkward title.

shortened YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most of this is now solved. I'm still a bit unsure about the way the article mixes history and lake features, but in its current state, I think it works okay. Rebecca (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This paragraph - Government House and the newly-built Australian National University, on the southern and northern shores of the West Lake, both gained a waterfront. The National Museum was later built on the former site of the Royal Canberra Hospital. The public were encouraged to watch the controlled demolition of the hospital, but a girl was killed by flying debris, leading to criticism of the ACT Government. - jumps from 1966 to 1996 without really any implication that three decades has passed, and that the first half of these paragraph occurred chronologically before the previous paragraph in the article (which refers to the Captain Cook Memorial in 1970). I'd be surprised if there was really nothing that could be said about historical developments in a 30 year period there; either way the text needs to be clarified.

Clarified I think. hopefully rearranged better. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good job with this - nicely solved. Rebecca (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The "Lakeside Recreation" section still isn't stellar. Still of its use for major public events - Skyfire and Floriade are the big two that come to mind, but there are others. The water sports section is a little bit strange; no mention of paddle boating (seen on the lake every day), but windsurfing (which I never saw in four years) is popular? "Opportunities for swimming have decreased"? I'd like to see a source for it ever having been a particularly common activity.

Added info on Floriade and pedalboating, windsurfing is in the book; tweaked to say that swimming has often been banned, although it is already noted that the water is cold. But the book said that swimming occurred without specifying numbers YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely superb job. The only quibble left is the "...crowded area in terms of swimmers and vessels being in the water" - one thing Lake Burley Griffin will never be is crowded with swimmers! Rebecca (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The recent history section could do with a bit more work, too. One thing which I totally forgot to mention before was the huge controversy over the National Capital Authority's now-axed plans to develop the Albert Hall precinct, which could have seen developments right on the water. The Kingston redevelopment is missing mention of other urban renewal there; the Old Bus Depot Markets and the Canberra Glassworks. The intended expansion to demolish the somewhat historic Causeway neighbourhood next door might warrant a sentence. I think the weight placed on the Immigration Bridge proposal is possibly a bit high; it gets as much article time as the far more notable Kingston changes. Finally, "...luxury apartment complexes were built in the suburb of Kingston, turning into a upper-class area" is a bit strange; Kingston was already an upper-class area.

I thought Kingston was an industrial area.... please fix as required. Added into on powerhouse and glasworks YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Albert Hall mentioned. Help with some of thsi Kingston thing requested YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You've done a really good job here. The one remaining issue here is the Albert Hall redevelopment; the significance of this is that it would have led to shops/bars/etc on the shores of the lake in the central area (and wasn't just heritage activists; was generally very controversial) - a couple more sentences here would be good (though the refs you've already got there should be enough to support it). As for Kingston; it's an upper-class suburb - it's where the pollies hang out at night when parliament's sitting, but there used to be a strip of industrial facilities along the edge of the lake, which is what's currently being redeveloped. Rebecca (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And as noted above, the article has a fair few redlinks. I've noted above that some could be delinked or piped to existing articles, but there's still a fair few that need writing.

All in all, it's hugely improved, and its already an excellent article. But it could still do with a bit more work to really bring it up to top standard. Rebecca (talk) 15:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah the tough workout will be good in the long run. Ideally people within a wikiproject know more so they can scrutinise more properly. WP:AUS is better than some others with 100% pile on supports of any old article, that's for sure. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nice work on the stubs (although I'm still not sure that at least the Yacht Club is notable), but could you please write an actual stub about the Royal Canberra Hospital? The Royal Canberra Hospital was a separate hospital serving Canberra along with the Woden Hospital for a quarter of a century before it closed and the Woden Hospital changed name; it really deserves an article of its own. That, and the one other slight quibble above, and I think we're done here. I'm really impressed with the job you've done here - I've been a damn hard critic with a fair bit of background knowledge, and you've turned out the sources and put together an article many times better than the one you started with. Rebecca (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
RCH has its own now. Also, Albert Hall is a bit bigger. Found a bit more ref diversity. Tweaked a few more things. No pain, no gain. Thanks again for your help. A check for typos/copyedit/consistent formatting should suffice now. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:51, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Superb. No further objections, well deserving of featured status. I'm very impressed. Rebecca (talk) 07:55, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, quality of references, comprehensiveness. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:58, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 06:49, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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