Wikipedia:Peer review/Colton Point State Park/archive1

Colton Point State Park

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A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for September 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
We've listed this article for peer review because we believe that it could be a Featured Article, and are looking for some feedback before it is submitted to WP:FAC. It follows a format and style very similar to that of Black Moshannon State Park, Worlds End State Park, and its neighbor across the gorge Leonard Harrison State Park, which are all featured articles that we have worked on.

Thanks in advance for any feedback, Dincher (talk) and Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:23, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Juliancolton (talk · contribs)

An interesting and well-written read. Hard to find many things to fault.
It is on the west rim of the Pine Creek Gorge, also known as the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, which is 800 feet (244 m) deep and nearly 4,000 feet (1,219 m) across here. "It is on" → "It is situated on"? This occurs once more farther into the article. Also, "here" → "at this location".
- Added "situated" and changed "here" to "at this location", thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the Lumber section goes into slightly too much detail. For example, in the second paragraph of the section I'm not sure the dimensions of the spars are needed.
- Well, the lumber section is largely the same as the Leonard Harrison State Park section of the same name (with some Leonard Harrison details removed and some COlton Point details added). The size of the spars is in to give some idea of just how large the trees harvested were. I am OK with removing the spar dimensions, but let's see what Dincher thinks first. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Actually, I think it should be fine. It does indeed add a little bit of interesting detail. –Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 20:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Three overlooks were constructed by the CCC, as was a rectangular gable-roofed maintenance building with wane edge siding and exposed rafters made of logs. Link Gable.
- Linked the first occurrence, at the gable roofed latrines. There are pictures of two of them on Commons ;-) Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another New York Times article on whitewater canoeing in 1973 noted the damage along the creek done by Hurricane Agnes the year before, and Colton Point's "woodland trails",[42] while a 2002 story cites the park as a starting point for hiking the West Rim Trail and notes the beauty and wildlife found there. Needs to be worded better, though I'm not sure how.
- I tried splitting it into two sentences, so it now reads A 1973 New York Times article on whitewater canoeing noted the damage along Pine Creek done by Hurricane Agnes the year before, and Colton Point's "woodland trails".[42] Another Times story on the West Rim Trail in 2002 cites the park as a starting point for hiking it and notes the beauty and wildlife found there.[43]
Centuries of accumulated organic matter in the forest soil caused slow percolation of rainfall into the creeks and runs, so that they flowed more evenly year-round. "That" is redundant.
- Good catch - it is gone now, thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Colton Point State Park is a destination for avid hikers, with some very challenging hikes in and around the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. Starting to sound a tad travel guide-ish.
- Thanks, I changed the first two sentences to one, that now reads Colton Point State Park has some challenging hikes in and around the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, with 4.0 miles (6.4 km) of trails that feature very rugged terrain, pass close to steep cliffs, and can be very slick in some areas.[4] Is this better? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

–Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 18:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for your kind words and helpful comments, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments and catches. Dincher (talk) 20:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is an excellent article, and it will be a good companion to Leonard Harrison State Park. I have to stop for the night, but I thought I'd post this short list of suggestions and return tomorrow (Tuesday) with perhaps a few more.

I'm having trouble with the paragraph about the State Scenic Rivers Act. In what sense did the state treat the creek "as if it were in the state program" for 20 years before "officially" including it? Was the designation meaningless during those years, or did it have tangible effects?
- I reread Dillon and Owlett on this. Dillon says the state added new public access areas to decrease abuse of private property, and protected the Gorge as a State Natural Area (since it was not yet officially protected as a State Scenic River). Owlett says the state did not want federal control of the river, and withdrew / stopped tentative plans for dams, taking water for new planned power plants, etc. These would not have been allowed on a State Scenic River. Not sure how to inlcude this / what level of detail to go into. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

- - Maybe this would do it: "Although the state protected the creek from dam-building and water withdrawals for power plants, local opposition arose to the wild and scenic river designation. This resistance was based at least partly on mistaken fears that protection would involve seizure of private property and restricted access." Just a suggestion. Finetooth (talk) 05:12, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On my computer monitor, citations 21 and 24 in the "Lumber era" section are separated from "... nearly all the mills along the creek" by line-wrap. I think "no-wrap" codes would fix this. The same thing happens to citations 33 and 34 in the "Conservation" section after "the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which named it 'Leonard Harrison State Forest Park' ".
- I understand the problem, but am hesitant to do this as I think we might have to do this for many refs as every computer seems to display differently - perhaps see if this is a problem raised in FAC and address it then if needed? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - That makes sense. Finetooth (talk) 05:12, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence about the gorge railroad, the NYC, and Clearfield might be improved by adding a little more geography. Most people won't know where the NYC line ran or where Clearfield is. Maybe just general N-S-E-W directions would help. "...NYC, X miles to the south, with the Clearfield Coalfields, Y miles to the west... " or something like that might do. Did the JS & Buffalo hook into another line at the north end of the gorge, or did it go all the way to the coal fields? Did coal trains actually use the line?
- Thanks, I agree this would be useful but am not certain of all the details myself. I will ask Choess who knows much more about this rail line. I can also look in the Owlett and Dillon books, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'm just curious, perhaps. I'm not sure you need these details, although it wouldn't hurt to mention them briefly if known. Finetooth (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - It carried millions of tons of coal and it became part of the New York Central eventually. Will update this, thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In "Modern era", "... created jobs for the out of work industrial workers" might be tightened to "... created jobs for unemployed industrial workers".
- Done, thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:22, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In "Modern era", perhaps "wane edge siding" should be explained.
- I linked "wane" to the Wiktionary definition - it is like clapboard siding, but the bottom edge is not straight and is rounded and rough, often with bark. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - I might notice these because I'm fairly clueless about architectural details. I don't know a clapboard from a transom, and wainscot might be a kind of tartan, for all I know. Finetooth (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is George Bodine important enough to include? If so, who was he or what kind of professional? Maybe "George Bodine, a hotel and restaurant manager from Wellsboro" or something like that would work.
- I have no idea who he is / was, except that the DCNR history article names him. I took his name out and the phrase now reads A concession stand was built by the CCC and operated from the late 1930s to at least 1953, ... - not sure when the concession stand closed. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:22, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This sentence in "Modern era" doesn't scan very well: "A 1973 New York Times article on whitewater canoeing noted the damage along Pine Creek done by Hurricane Agnes the year before, and Colton Point's 'woodland trails' ". Perhaps "A 1973 New York Times article on whitewater canoeing noted the damage done by Hurricane Agnes the year before along Pine Creek and to Colton Point's "woodland trails".
- The NYT article is mostly on whitewater on Pine Creek and mentions Colton Point a few times too - it does not explicitly say the park trails were damaged by Hurricane Agnes though, so sorry for the unclear usage. I have just cut the woddland trails phrase so the sentence now reads A 1973 New York Times article on whitewater canoeing noted the damage along Pine Creek done by Hurricane Agnes the year before. Is this OK? Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Looks good. It's clear, and it supports the idea that the gorge continued to attract national attention. Finetooth (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hope this helps. I will return. Finetooth (talk) 04:26, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have started working on these - thanks very much for your helpful comments and kind words and copyedits. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:22, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further Finetooth comments: I took liberties with some minor punctuation questions and made alterations. Here are two more small suggestions.

One punctuation oddity that I didn't change but noticed is in the caption of the log-drive photo. It says "A log drive on Pine Creek–clearcutting... " I find the en dash jarring. Even though the first part of this caption is not a complete sentence, I'd prefer, "A log drive on Pine Creek. Clearcutting... ".
- I was desperately trying to avoid a period as it is not a full sentence. I don't suppose a colon would work there instead? If not will switch to a period. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Fortunately, I am able to save face here by quoting the MoS. (I sometimes think I remember what it says, but then my memory proves faulty.) I quote: "If a complete sentence occurs in a caption, that sentence and any sentence fragments in that caption should end with a period." If someone calls you on this at FAC, you can point them to this sentence at MOS:CAPTIONS. Finetooth (talk) 22:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - Thanks, I have made the change. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The new MOSNUM guidelines suggest that full dates in the citations be internally consistent. I take this to mean that in a U.S.-centric article is OK with m-d-y formatting or ISO formatting but not a mixture. The existing article has a mixture. Citation 1, for example, includes one m-d-y date and one ISO date.
- Thanks - I took the plunge and delinked any remianing dates (one was in ref one, one elsewhere) and switched all the refs that used accessdate = whatever to "accessmonthday = September 30 | accessyear=2008". Whew, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - That's what I've been doing. I hope it doesn't come back to bite us. An acceptable alternative apparently is to use m-d-y dates in the main text and ISO dates in the citations so long as the main text is internally consistent and the citations as a group are internally consistent even though the two sets (main text and citations) are inconsistent relative to one another. I ran into great difficulty with the Columbia River citations. I changed most citation dates to m-d-y before discovering to my horror that while cite web understands accessmonthday and accessyear, not all of the cite family of templates understands them. I ended up reverting all the Columbia citation dates to ISO. I should have asked Dincher to do this for me just to see a grand PC smashing. Finetooth (talk) 22:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - I use the search function on my browser and also pasted the same date in in each case, which made things easier. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to add that I really enjoyed reading the Geology section, which I think is exceptionally clear and well-written. This completes my review. I think the article is FA-worthy and has no major problems. It's certainly an interesting read. Finetooth (talk) 18:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the review. The dates in the ref bit is something that would cause me to want to smash my PC. Glad Ruhrfisch got to it first. Same for the ndashes etc. They are beyond my understanding and I am thankful for users such as you who know what is going on with this stuff. Anyway, thanks again! Dincher (talk) 21:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree on the thanks, and thanks too for the kid words on the article and geology section. I have replied to all the points I believe, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]