Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Houston, Texas/archive2

Houston, Texas

After many months of work, we feel that this article is ready for featured article status. Thank you, Postoak 01:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First FAC, for archival purposes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment looks good. I've only done a quick reading. Will give it a more thorough look tomorrow, but I think I will be supporting. Regards, --Jayzel 02:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Support The article shines and is well referenced and appropriately cited. Regards, --Jayzel 03:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

~~Object~~

~~1.Image:Houston grid system.jpg, Image:Houston streets 1942.jpg, Image:MainStreetHouston1864.jpg have no source information.~~

Fixed Removed images and replaced with PD image. Postoak 05:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

~~2. The image Image:Houston City Hall Ariel.jpg is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license, which is not an acceptable license for Wikipedia.~~

Fixed Removed image. Looking for a replacement. Postoak 05:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

~~3. The image Image:Houston freeway 002.jpg is claimed as "fair use", but is reasonably replaceable and does not contribute significantly to the article. It needs to be removed.~~

Fixed Removed image Postoak 05:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

--Carnildo 04:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm moving to Houston in the next two weeks, so this article was of particular interest to me, but I do have several concerns.

The intro feels very choppy with little natural transition in the LEAD.
The history reads like a series of evens "In XXXX this happened" and "By XXXX this happened." There are 3 consecutive setences begining with the word "By."

Changed that instance. Ufwuct 15:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MD Anderson should be wikilinked---if there isn't an article on them, there should be, they are one of the countries premier medical facilities for cancer. (Create the link, you don't have to create the article.)

It appears to be wikilinked already at Houston, Texas#Healthcare and medicine. Ufwuct 05:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Personal preference, I'd like to see the history section broken into subgroups that are more digestable. But that isn't required.

The history section was in subgroups for (I think) over a year. It was only very recently changed to one large section and this was because of comments from a peer review that suggested we have one large history section. Ufwuct 15:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Tends to feel still" unencyclopedic.

Reworded by User:Ufwuct

"Temperature peaks at 94"--So it never goes above 94? That isn't even true in Denver.

Changed to reflect that the average peaks at 94. Ufwuct 15:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Afternoon rains are common and for most summer days, Houston meteorologists predict at least some chance of rain." Huh? Needs a citation and rewording.

Reworded as general statement that would be true for most humid subtropical climates in the world. Ufwuct 15:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Government and politics section needs citations.

Added several refs to this section. Removed several unsourced or vaguely sourced sentences. Ufwuct 15:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Only 28 nations other than the United States have a GDP exceeding Houston's GAP" get rid fo the US reference... makes it wordy.

Reworded: 29 nations total. Ufwuct 15:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Demographics section needs to be cited... I also don't like the GR citations, but don't know if they are acceptable or not.

Other featured U.S. cities articles include Boston, Massachusetts, Cleveland, Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, Marshall, Texas, San Francisco, California, San Jose, California, and Seattle, Washington. The featured versions of these articles (Boston(Current version)Cleveland Louisville Marshall San Jose Seattle(used U.S. Census Bureau but currently uses GR2)) all used GR2, except for San Francisco, which uses less accurate population estimates from a state agency instead of the U.S. Census Bureau. So, I'm fairly certain that GR citations are acceptable. Ufwuct 00:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Crime section is choppy.Balloonman 00:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed a duplicate sentence and cleaned up a few of the other sentences. Ufwuct 01:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have reordered (and reworded) the sentences into a semi-chronological order. Ufwuct 01:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. At a quick look, there are far too few sources. Everything in the body of the article needs to be sourced. Hurricanehink (talk) 00:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This objection apparently has been resolved. This article has numerous references. 128.249.204.216 23:32, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OBJECT: Too many one/two sentence paragraphs, stubby subsections, writing often reads like a dull recitation of statistics (even stats can be made into compelling prose). History section is decent, but even that could use quite a bit of tweaking. Uneven writing means it ain't "well-written". Could use a few more facts being cited. —ExplorerCDT 18:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support. This article is well-organized and well-written. Contrary to complaints, the article has 93 references - versus 63 for today's feature ad, ahem article, Half-Life 2. That doesn't include the countless Wikilinks to detailed, informative articles about area landmarks and history, which contribute greatly to the value of this entry. Mike Serfas 20:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. I have no problem with 93 references as long as there are only 93 facts asserted. The issue remains that there are numerous facts asserted without required referencing. It's not merely a matter of quantity. It's that all facts asserted are cited, and verifiable (per WP:CITE, WP:RS, WP:V). Until facts that are currently uncited are cited, there's no reason to claim well: "it already has 93, more than article x, so that must mean that's plenty.". —ExplorerCDT 21:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I'm honestly not sure to what standard this article is being held. Looking up at the other U.S. city featured articles (see above), Houston now (with 96) has more footnotes than any one of those other articles. Cleveland had very few in comparison its featured version. The featured version of Seattle has NO inline references, though it does have 7 external links embedded in the text.

If each sentence in a Wikipedia article can be thought of as an assertion, and every assertion must have a footnote-type source, then every article on Wikipedia (including all featured articles) miserably falls short of this standard. Even it is narrowed down to only sentences with numbers, percentages, or dates, or to strongly worded sentences, I would still venture to guess that no article on Wikipedia lives up to this standard. The featured version of the Cleveland article surely has more than 19 assertions and the featured version of the Seattle article has more than 7 sentences.

Basically, some facts have to be accepted as coming from the book sources, from non-linkable sources, or daughter articles. Otherwise, every sentence would end up having a ref after it, which would be unnecessary and distracting. I now think that this item (of sourcing) has become a strong point of this article. If the quality of the prose is lacking, that's a different issue, and maybe that should now be the focus of further improvements. Ufwuct 22:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To follow up, note that the featured article criterion 1(c) requires that the article be "factually accurate". The article must be verifiable against reliable sources. This does not mean that an hyperlinked reference is required for every sentence. In fact, no reference need be given at all - provided the material is accurate! It's a little bit paradoxical, but that appears to be the policy. To raise an objection you must actually point to something that is not factually accurate. Mike Serfas 00:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Everything except "common knowledge" requires a source. Any claim that doesn't have a source is liable to be deleted although it is common practice and wikiquette to request a source, (possibly) mention it on the talk page, wait, wait some more, and then delete it (or move the claim to the talk page). However, I would like to again emphasize my question: To what standard is this article being held? There is no requirement for featured articles to be perfect. In fact, one of, if not the main reason that the main page featured articles are not protected or semi-protected (despite heavy vandalism) is that even featured articles need to be improved. Featured articles often are improved based on this main page exposure and were therefore not perfect to begin with. Ufwuct 01:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Held up to each reviewer's interpretation of the criteria given their reasons, connotations, associations, and understanding of wikipedia policies and guidelines. FA status, as it stands now, demands a better article. Not perfect, but it does, superlatively, have to be the "best" work Wikipedia has to offer. The above aren't suggestions that the article sucks and is irredeemable (sometimes they are), but in this case, all I'm saying is the article does need a bit more improvement (and citation) before I will switch my objection to support. Lastly, several FA articles from 2004/2005 don't meet today's standards so comparisons of "well, this article is like this other article" are sometimes specious...considering the other article probably should be put up for FA Review given it's only here until someone notices how it doesn't match the current criteria.—ExplorerCDT 02:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support I watched this article grow for years and I find that it is currently of excellent quality. It has dramatically improved since its last FAC, and many fine Wikipedians have worked on it over the years. I do not find the reference assertion to be neither practical nor practicable. I pulled out several books, including Gone to Texas, by Randolph B. Campbell, considered the current definitive history of Texas, by scholars of Texas history. In it and the other texts that I reviewed, I did not find that every assertion made in passing is directly referenced neither though footnotes nor endnotes. The fact that it has more than references than any other city FA, eliminates any lingering concerns that I might have had. I find that most of the pictures—if not all of them—are of good quality and illustrate the article well. Since it is not the pictures themselves that are being featured, and technically an FA does not have to have any pictures at all, I see no need to dwell on that point further. GR references were the first broad attempt that wikipedia made at having inline references. They are de facto part of many US geography articles. I don’t see why a discussion about their worth should affect Houston more than say New York or Kalamazoo. I’m not saying that the worth of GRs isn’t worth discussing just that this is not the proper venue for it, nor should the article be penalized for something that all of the other. My only suggestion is that the weather chart be include in the climate section of the main article, as that is information that people want to see up front rather than in a sub article. I find the arguments of the oppostion to be unconvincing and the absence of the weather chart is not enough to change my opinion that the article deserves to be featured. -JCarriker 04:08, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]