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Balch Creek

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

{subst:PR/archive}} I've listed this article about a short urban creek for peer review because I've done most of the work on it with relatively little feedback. I'd like someone interested in geography to take a look to make sure that I haven't omitted anything essential and that the prose is clear and flowing. I find this creek especially interesting because of its dual nature, park-like along two-thirds of its length and industrial thereafter. My intention is to take the article to FAC perhaps after making a run at GA.

Thanks, Finetooth (talk) 19:27, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Comment: Fantastic job here. Great information, depth, focus, and sources. The only real concern I have is with the prose, which can be awkward in areas. For example:
  • in the "Course" section, the text is a bit difficult to follow... too much of "left, then right, then left again", it makes for an unpleasant read, in my opinion. If there's someway to smooth that out to say, perhaps "It runs through X property, then alongside Y trail, before finally ending up at Z creek" instead of providing the blow-by-blow description of the flow?
  • There are areas where it's assumed that the reader knows certain things that are probably familiar to locals... for example, Forest Park may not be familiar to people outside of Portland. Adding a few appositives to describe essential in the first instance of a keyword would be helpful, such as: "Forest Park, a municipal park within the city of Portland,..."
  • This is a run-on nightmare: "About 16 million years ago during the Middle Miocene, the Columbia River ran through a lowland south of its modern channel, roughly where Mount Hood arose millions of years later, and through which huge eruptions from linear vents near Joseph and Enterprise in eastern Oregon and Walla Walla in eastern Washington flowed as fluid lavas that sometimes reached the Pacific Ocean."
  • This is just me being nitpicky, but also try to avoid the passive voice such as instead of "and Balch Creek is crossed by the Woodpecker Trail and then the Wildwood Trail" better: "Woodpecker Trail and then Wildwood Trail cross Balch Creek" and "About 88 percent of the middle reaches are covered with trees and shrubs" better: "Trees and shrubs cover 88 percent of the middle reaches"
  • "The Balch Creek watershed consists of 2,248 acres (910 ha), roughly equal to 3.5 square miles (9.1 km²), zoned in more than a dozen different ways." Scratch "zoned in more than a dozen different ways"... unnecessary.
  • Try not to start sentences with "Because" or any conjunction.
  • This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, but placing references at the end of sentences (or at least after punctuation) is a generally-accepted convention. Best not to leave references in the middle of the sentence unless not doing so would cause confusion.
Anyway, overall great job. Definitely a candidate for WP:GAN. Best, epicAdam (talk) 16:51, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: Thank you for the prompt and most helpful review. I'm taking your suggestions to heart, and I'll make revisions accordingly over the next couple of days. Finetooth (talk) 18:32, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment by Doncram: IANACP (i am not a creek person), so i hope u get other reviews. I like the two maps, showing the creek course itself and the location in the state. It is a visual puzzle though, where the creek goes to, as it is shown then disappears when hitting the gridwork of streets in the city. The text explains that the creek flows along, and then eventually is shunted into a sewerline or something. I suppose you have considered this already in your construction of the map, but would it be possible to add a dotted line, showing the course of the sewerline to the river? It seems relevant, as u do mention it coming out on the river. Perhaps you don't have maps of the sewerline, but in my experience with another city the sanitation department has tons of maps and could be very cooperative with providing everything u need to understand the rest of the course. So, the map worked in a way, raising a visual puzzle for me and causing me to read the text. But, if u could add a dotted line i still think that would be better. Hope this helps. doncram (talk) 17:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: Thanks, Doncram. That idea is something I have been kicking around, and you are nudging me in the direction of the dotted line. I think I can pretty easily determine the precise location of Outfall 17, and my research thus far suggests that the pipe runs straight from the rack to the river. I'll see what I can do. Finetooth (talk) 19:05, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Found it, on-line no less. The city has published an interactive map that shows where the sewers go. The Balch Creek map now includes a dashed black line showing where the sewer goes. It turns out to be not exactly a straight line. Fun to do. Thanks for suggesting this. Finetooth (talk) 00:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhfisch Comments: I need to review a creek article to restore my soul or at least help recharge my batteries. Overall looks very good - here are some nit picks.

  • I agree with doncram about somehow showing the course of the underground creek on the map - a dotted line seems like a good solution, there may be others (different color? dots?)
  • The last paragraph of the lead is very short - can it be expanded or perhaps combined with another? Perhaps note that the creek is partly in a nature preserve and partly in an "Industrial Sanctuary" - how schizophrenic.
  • The layout on IE on my computer is such that there is a large block of white space between the Course header (even with "Length" in the Geobox) and the Course text, which starts only after the Geobox. I think this is because of the placement of the WPA structure photo - if it were lower in the article, this would not happen.
  • I would put the source and mouth elevations in the article somewhere, probably the course - that is a huge drop for such a short creek.
  • I started the article on River Miles, so I should know this, but I don't. Should the River Kilometers be given too? I think they probably should somehow. Can always ask at WikiProject Rivers for advice.
  • "fragment" sounds odd in then flows northeast, re-entering Forest Park in the fragment of it known as Macleay Park.[12][13] what about section or part?
  • Curiosity question - how do they clean the grate where it goes underground? I have seen these in Pennsylvania where there is access for a backoe to come in and scoop out the flotsam and jetsam after storms.
  • Should it be and [the threat of?] landslides discourage urban development in the hills.[19]? or perhaps the potential for?
  • I would remove "roughly" in The Balch Creek watershed consists of 2,248 acres (910 ha), roughly equal to 3.5 square miles (9.1 km²). It is exact to one significant figure.
  • Missing word in Citizen groups such as the No Ivy League and Friends of Forest Park have engaged in projects to remove ivy, to plant native species, and to widen and protect riparian zones, but critics have expressed doubt [about?] the long-term maintenance of these projects.[19]
  • Any idea when the creek was put into a sewer pipe? Sounds like a WPA project to me, although it could have been earlier.
  • Any idea what the Natives called the creek? The History section is a bit of a jumble chronologically as now written. Could the first paragraph from Guild's Lake be moved to the Name section, even if you just say they gave their name to the county and no one knows what the called this creek? That would make things more chronological and we already have some idea of where the lake was from earlier in the article.
  • There is some repetition on Mr. Guild in the Name and Guild's Lake sections.
  • Refs look good - might want to clarify that the Google Earth elevation is only the creek mouth (source is in GNIS).
  • The woodpecker image, while lovely, seems overly large. Adding "upright" to the image tag "thumb|upright" will make it smaller and still satisfy WP:MOS#Images

Hope this helps, if you want to return the favor Forksville Covered Bridge is in PR and has not had a lot of comments (hint hint). ;-) Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the helpful suggestions. The three sets of ideas above give me a great deal to consider. I didn't know about "upright", and I'd forgotten to include the stream gradient even though I've got the numbers somewhere in a pile of notes. I'd be glad to review Forksville Covered Bridge, which I have not yet read. Two cousins are visiting me all day Wednesday, so I might be more-or-less invisible on Wikipedia until Thursday. Finetooth (talk) 03:57, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is no problem - please take your time on the bridge, which follows a FA model and seems to be in pretty good shape already, just want to make sure others think so. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 12:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe I've responded to everything in all the reviews above and made partial or complete changes in every case. I've posted a note about kilometer-miles to the rivers project. Thank you all. Finetooth (talk) 00:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

  • You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
    • What makes the following sources reliable?

http://www.artofgeography.com/maps/fp/index.html

Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 13:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Thanks, Ealdgyth. Even though you probably won't see this reply, the Art of Geography citation is to a set of on-line maps of the park that essentially duplicate a printed 10-map set published by the Friends of Forest Park. I have the printed 10-map set, and if the question of verifiability arises later, I could change the citation to the printed set. Finetooth (talk) 15:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<outdent> The "newspaper" review I was remembering turned out to be a blog entry, not necessarily reliable. Instead of the citations to the freelance cartographer's on-line map, I cited two maps published by the Friends of Forest Park and added a reference and link to the freelancer's on-line version. Thanks again User:Ruhrfisch and User:Ealdgyth. Finetooth (talk) 02:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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