Talk:Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan

Written like an essay

This article sounds more like an essay than it does an encyclopaedia artcile. It's full of subjective terms and what appears to be uncited original research. Take the lead section for example.

Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, is a small locality located on Trans-Canada Highway 1 and the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline, some thirty miles east of Regina, Saskatchewan. With

• its for a time seemingly long-term terminus status for the Canadian Pacific Railway;
• its lush rolling parkland setting, intermittent "coulees" (gentle valleys with steady-flowing creeks) and "bluffs" (the local term for aspen groves) and generally picturesque locale both in summer and winter and
• its ready access to ample water

Qu'Appelle had at one stage been credibly anticipated to be a major metropole by both

• the federal government of Canada — it was under serious consideration by the federal government for district headquarters of the District of Assiniboia and territorial headquarters of the North-West Territories — and
• the Church of England (now the Anglican Church of Canada), which for a time designated Qu'Appelle the cathedral city for the Diocese of Qu'Appelle, geographically corresponding precisely to the District of Assiniboia in the North-West Territories.

Political events, however, passed Qu'Appelle entirely by and when Lieutenant-Governor Edgar Dewdney elected the locale of his own landholdings some 30 miles to the east of Qu'Appelle as his Territorial capital, Qu'Appelle's significance other than in historical terms largely lapsed.

It could be rewritten to something like this:

Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, is a town located on Trans-Canada Highway and the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline, 55 km (34 mi) east of Regina, Saskatchewan. The Government of Canada and the Church of England at one time anticipated Qu'Appelle to be a major metropole because of its terminus status for the Canadian Pacific Railway, its "coulees" and aspen groves, and its ready access to ample water.

Several of the changes made include:

• the bulk of the historical content moved to the history section and a simple summary left in the lead
• subjective, uncited terms such as "lush", "picturesque", and "credibly" removed
• verbosity (such as "a small locality") rewritten ("a town")
• unfamiliar words linked and their definitions removed
• guess at distance replaced with actual distance in both metric and imperial

The entire article needs to receive a similar overhaul. And there needs to be more references considering the number of bold statements being made. --Kmsiever (talk) 02:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Note 1

Note: (a) the extraordinarily wide main street, in contemplation of the town's anticipated metropolitan importance; (b) the grain elevator (one of several) adjacent to the CPR tracks at the south end of Main Street; (c) the substantially brick rather than timber buildings, anticipating permanent importance for the town; (d) the signs and canvass awnings of the commercial establishments, indicating the considerable vitality of trade and commerce in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Qu'Appelle; (d) the fully occupied commercial lots along the street, since the 1950s incrementally vacated; (e) the horse-drawn vehicles drawn up along the street at the time of an obviously early-morning photo-shoot.

There are two (d)s. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be that way or not. But I noticed it when reverting the bad change to the section title and thought I'd mention it. Lara❤Love 14:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Request for comment

I am requesting third-party advice on the content of this article. To me, it seems this article is written too much like an essay, with uncited, bold statements and what seems like original research. I posted a template at the top of the article saying as much, then posted a new section on this Talk page outlining in detail why I thought so. The editor Masalai has reverted the template on several occasions without addressing any of the issues I raised and without explaining why he does not think this article is written as an essay. I would like third-party opinion to try settling the matter one way or the other. --Kmsiever (talk) 12:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I am English and am unable to verify the accuracy of the content. However, this is in my view a reasonably satisfactory article. I too do not like the bulletted introduction. This can (and should) be converted to ordinary narrative. Otherwise, I see little wrong with it. It is in fact much better than many articles on villages that I have seen. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes it is better than a lot of village articles. But it could use some general cleanup and fixes. The person who did the following.... (a) to cite something need needs to be replaced with something better. For such a long article there is only 13 citations. More needs to be added. Mr. C.C. (talk) 06:01, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Which "(a)" are you referring to? And actually there are 35 notes. Could you be more specific as to your issues? Masalai (talk) 06:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I've put this article up for peer review and listed it as WP:CANADA and WP:CITIES. I agree with Kmsiever's general concerns. The article in present form does not read like a typical location article. Michellecrisp (talk) 06:51, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

This does not read like a typical location article at all. Take this passage "...makes it especially unfortunate that this turned out not to be so, given the relative lack of natural amenity of Regina, the site actually chosen, where there is no locally available water other than from the small spring runoff Wascana Creek, the local topography is devoid of features and the local plain is entirely lacking in any trees that have not been planted by civic authorities and settlers."

Why the senseless bashing of Regina? What does the lack of natural trees in Regina have to do with Qu'Appelle? Very bitter and unencyclopedic. dzhastin (talk) 19:16, 18 September 2008 (UTC)