Wikipedia:Peer review/Keoladeo National Park/archive1

Keoladeo National Park

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to see if it can make it to the list of featured article. I need your reviews, guidance and feedbacks in order to improve this article if need be, so that it may get the featured article badge.

Thanks, Nikhilchandra81 (talk) 12:14, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by H1nkles

I'll take a look at the article with the idea that you would like to promote it to FAC. I see that you have not run it through the GA process. I recommend that you go there first. It is very valuable to have a GA reviewer stack the article up against the GA criteria. This is a lower bar than the FA criteria but it is a good place to start.

Lead

You link "National Park" to National parks of India. This isn't helpful as you are specifically discussing the Keoladeo National Park. Also it is a bit misleading to say National Park as that implies the Keoladeo National Park, when in reality you are discussing all the national parks in India (at least that's what I infer when you link it to that article). In the second paragraph in the lead you link to the National parks of India again. This is a more appropriate spot for the link and I would remove the earlier link. Also you only need to link the article once in the lead and perhaps once in the body. See WP:LINK for more info.
The green location dot is not on the India map, at least not in my Internet Explorer browser. This could just be an issue with my browser but I wanted to at least make you aware of it.
When stating measurement it needs to be in both metric and imperical (Km and Miles). You can use a conversion template: {{convert}}. I added one to the lead as an example. See WP:UNIT for MOS guidelines on this and please fix throughout.
Watch use of words like "highly" and "signficantly". This is an issue that crops up at FAC. Per the FA Criterion 1a the writing of the article should be at a brilliant and professional standard. Words like "highly" can be seen as peacock words and are not really necessary. I recommend you become familiar with User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a. In this article user Tony1 makes the point that it is always best to say what needs to be said using the least amount of words possible. In otherwords don't say in 10 words what you can say in 5. Words like "highly", "very", "significantly" etc. are superfluous and will be identified as poor prose at FAC. This is not an issue you will run into at GAC but since you wish to push this article to FA standing I'm bringing it up here.
I have finished reading the lead only and there are prose issues that need to be addressed if you want to satisfy criterion 1a in the FA guidelines. Here are some examples:

"...sees (or saw) thousands of rare and highly endangered birds such as..." Does a refuge "see" birds? Perhaps "host". Also use of both present and past-tense is not adviseable. Keep it in the present tense.
Remove "mostly" same reason as above.
"...are known to have made..." Too wordy, replace with "make" and keep only in present tense. Tense agreement is very important. Give the current # of bird species only.
"It is also a major tourist centre with scores of ornithologists arriving here in the hibernal season." Restate: "Scores of amateur and professional ornithologists visit the park each year." Is there one specific hibernal season or do the various species have their own hibernal season making it a year-round destination for ornithologists? Also I'm sure it's a destination not just for professional but also amateur bird lovers right?
"It was declared a protected sanctuary in 1971. It is also a declared World Heritage Site." Don't use "declared" twice so close together. You probably want to combine these sentences thus, "It was declared and protected sanctuary in 1971 and made a World Heritage Site in (YEAR)."
"Keoladeo Ghana National Park" Remove "Ghana" it's not in the title.
"...earlier was primarily used as a waterfowl hunting ground." Remove "primarily" see above, and make its earlier use its own sentence.
Per WP:LEAD the lead is a summary of the article. Therefore it isn't necessary to put the number of every species. Simply state "The diverse habitats are home to several hundred species of plant and animal life."
"Every year thousands of migratory waterfowl visit the park for wintering breeding etc." Just say for wintering and breeding, leave the etc. out.
You discussed the Siberian Crane in the first paragraph, remove it in the second.
"It is known for nesting of its resident birds and visiting migratory birds including water birds. The rarest Siberian cranes arrive here to winter. According to Sir Peter Scott Keoladeo Sanctuary is the world’s best bird area." Already said, remove these sentences.
Those are some of the prose issues I've found in the lead. To get it to FAC the article will need to be thoroughly scrubbed with a detailed prose review.

The lead also needs to be a summary of all the major points with in the article. It should be a skeletal outline of the article. Please make sure every topic raised in the body is included in the lead. For example I don't see anything about the facilities or constraints or the 2007 crisis or any management issues. Those need to be summarized in the lead.

That's all the time I have right now to review. I'll jump into the body of the article as I have time, but I think I've given you some things to work on. Please apply what I said about the lead to the rest of the article, especially regarding the writing. I welcome comments though I won't watch this Peer Review page so if you have specific questions please leave them on my talk page. H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 17:26, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

History

First off, the sourcing is deficient. Facts need to have in-line sources. I see two in-line sources in the first three sections. I add a ^{[citation needed]} template to the end of the first paragraph in the History section. The sections need to be adequately sourced for the article to pass GA and FA.
See WP:NBSP and WP:DASH. When giving a number followed by a descriptor, like 250 years you need to put in a non-breaking space. This assures that the descriptor will stay with the number on the same line. Also when indicating a span of time like 1850 – 1900 the "dash" needs to be an "ndash". The whys and hows are in the Manual of Style links.
You repeat in the second paragraph that the reserve was a private duck hunting park since 1850, not necessary.
"13 March 19S6" - 19S6? What is this?
I did some small grammatical clean up. A thorough grammatical edit is in order.

Getting there

Per WP:TITLEFORMAT section titles should have the first word capitolized and all subsequent words (except for proper nouns) should be lower case. Please fix throughout. Also no need to use "kms", km is fine and the template will fix that.
As above all distances should have the conversion to miles included.
I changed "...are most often used" to "can be employed" as it is difficult to source that private taxis are most often used vs. bus or train. Is there a reference to that fact?
Capitalization question. You refer to the Park and the Reserve using capitals. I think these should be lower case as these are not proper nouns. One could debate this so I'll simply say that whatever you decide to do make it consistent throughout the article.

Geography

Keoladeo (Bharatpur) National Park - I thought it was Keoladeo "Ghana" National Park. Please clarify and be consistent.
"...is a World Heritage Site situated..." - already stated that it's a world heritage site, watch duplication.
Watch terms like "approx". Abbreviations like this are not encouraged. Write it out completely.
"...Keoladeo National Park habitat is wetland systems with varying types of microhabitats having trees, mounds, dykes and open water with or without submerged or emergent plants." Too much information, end the sentence with microhabitats. I don't think the rest is necessary.
Link scientific terms like Dicanthium annulatum.
"Richness and diversity of plant life inside the Park is remarkable." I see a lot of sentence like this without appropriate articles. This sentence should start with "The".
There's a lot of unnecessary (in my opinion) detail in this section. Especially the discussion about water levels. Try to condense into a sentence or two.
"Arrangement to pump water from deep tube wells to fill small depressions to save seeds, spores and other aquatic life also exist." This could be said much more simply: "Water can be pumped from deep tube wells to fill small depressions in order to save seeds, spores and other aquatic life."
"They are also helpful in extreme years of drought." - "...helpful in years of extreme drought."

That's all I can do today. I probably won't get more reviewed until Monday. Again if you have specific questions please contact me on my talk page. H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 20:33, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Climate

Why do you specifically list the mean temperature for 1988? That doesn't make sense. It should be the average temperature for any given year. Why specify 1988? Same for rainfall. What's the significance of 1988? H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 17:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Biology

What are kalam or kadam, jamun and babul? It's a good idea to wikilink terms not familiar to readers unfamiliar with the subject.
Fluid measurements such as liters need to be converted to imperials measurements as well.
"Forestly, mostly in the north-east of the park, are dominated kalam or Mitragyna Parvifolia, Jamun Syzygium Cuminii and Babul Acacia Nilotica." Two issues, the first part of this sentence is a repeat of a previous sentence in this section. Second issue is that to my knowledge "Forestly" is not an English word.
Again I see more biological terms like "Kandi Prospopis Spicigera and ber Zizyphus" with no links.
I think the terms of species like "gadwall, shoveler, common teal, cotton teal...." should be capitalized.
In the Waterfowl section is primarily a list of birds. Can this be expanded since the park seems to be very widely known for its birds. More to come. H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 17:29, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're going to need to do something with the images. See WP:IMAGE and WP:ACCESS for thoughts on image placement. In my browser there is a large space between the title "Other species" and the text in this section. This is a formatting issue and has to do with the images and the text size of the surrounding sections. This will need to be addressed before the article reaches FAC.
What is a jungle cat and a fishing cat in the Mammals section? Aren't there more formal names like Puma or Jaguar?
Remove mention of bats from the mammals section as they aren't mammals. At least I don't think they are.
There is significant repetition between the species listed in the Mammals section and those listed in the "Other species" section. This should be corrected.
Watch use of bold text in the article. See MOS:BOLD for when to use boldface and when not to use boldface text.

Management

I'm not sure "Issues" is the right title for the section. To me I'm looking for management problems when I read a section entitled Issues. Perhaps "Goals" could be a more appropriate title. I'd have to think about it more though.
I thought the park was home to the Siberian Crane, but the Constraints section states that it is now gone. Am I confused? Perhaps this could be better worded.
I added a ^{[citation needed]} template to the statement about tensions running high. This should be sourced.
"Furthermore, recycled nutrients from the large quantity of dung deposited by livestock probably supported considerable numbers of insects." Don't use words like "probably". This indicates speculation, which should be totally absent from an encyclopedia.

Tourism and Visitor facilities

I would remove "facilities" from the title of this section. It is not just about the facilities but about the tourist draw of the park. Make it less specific.
Be sure to link the first use of the currency: Rs 200.
"The cycle rickshaw wallah’s displaying yellow plate meaning authorized double up as guides also carry binoculars." I'm not sure what to do with this sentence. It needs to be rewritten.
Change "wallah" to an English term.
I would discuss the various facilities open to tourists early in this section. Now you mention them piecemeal, the canteen the Forest Lodge etc. Discuss them all up front and then refer to them as you continue through the section.
"An array of 3 star hotels and resorts are also located in the vicinity of the park where visitors can stay cozily." Take out words like "cozily". Not professional and it makes the article sound like a travel guide.
I removed references to "in India" as this is obvious and unnecessary.

Scientific Research and Facilities

"including the ringing of birds for the last 40 years." Changing "ringing" to something like "tracking". It's unclear what ringing means.
"Particular attention will be given to any in dramatic change in the vegetation following the ban on grazing." Why is this in the future tense?

Crisis of 2007

Two issues here:

It's too technical, for example readers don't need to know exactly how many cubic meters of water the Bund needs to supply the park, or what type of pumps and pipelines are used.
The crisis was 4 years ago, what is the result of their work? There should be some results by now right?

References

See WP:CITE for information on what how to format your references. You need to use a standard form for all of your references. I recommend {{cite web}} and {{cite book}}. These are good templates that will autoformat your citations. All website references need an accessdate, publisher, and name of the article or website. This is a minimum.
Book references should be separate from website references. Also specific information pulled from the books should be cited in the article with the author's last name, year of publication and page number. See Olympic Games, which is an FA. It will give you a format for doing your references. There are a lot of different ways to do them, just make sure you pick one and be consistent.
The references you use also need to be credible. See WP:VERIFIABILITY for a good discussion on what makes a reliable source. For example reference 10 is a website to a tourist train company. Which isn't compliant with FA criterion 1c.

External links

The WCMC link is dead.
No luxury train links necessary. Wikipedia isn't an advertising site.

Overall I'll discuss my overall impression of the article, suggestions for fixes, and what I think you should do to get this article to FA standing:

The foundation of the article is set, a lot of the writing has already been done. In that sense you're well on your way. Much of the heavy lifting is finished.
What has been written needs to be polished. There are a lot of missing article like "the", "a", "and", "or" etc. The article needs a thorough prose and grammar scrubbing. Perhaps someone at WP:INDIA would be willing to help with this. You can also post a request at WP:GOCE or WP:REWARD. People may be willing to help there.
The sourcing is very sparse and needs a lot of attention. The rule of thumb is that if you make an assertion of fact it needs to have a source. As stated above the sources need to be formatted consistently.
I see a lot of references to the 1980's. See Climate, Management Constraints, and Scientific research and facilities. All of these sections discuss information and events in the 1980's. This is very dated. What has happened recently? Why is the information so old?
My recommendation is that you do the work outlined above, then post it at WP:GAC. There you will have an independent reviewer stack the article up against the GA Criteria. This will help you know how the article is fairing against the Manual of Style. After the article passes GA review I would list it here again for another thorough peer review. At that point a lot of the glaring issues will have been addressed and it will be easier for the reviewer to nit pick through the article to pull out things that will need to be fixed in order to get it to FA standards. As it stands now there are too many fundamental things that need to be fixed before the article can be gone through with a fine-tooth comb. It's this very thorough review that will get the article ready for the FAC review process. This concludes my review. I hope it has been helpful to you. If so please consider reviewing someone else's article to keep the backlog down either here or at GAC. Again if you have specific questions please contact me on my talk page as I do not routinely watch this page. Good luck! H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 17:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]