Wikipedia:Peer review/St. Johns River/archive1

St. Johns River

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

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 July 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I just expanded it quite a bit and am looking for feedback. May take it to FA, definitely to GA. Any responses appreciated. Thanks, Moni3 (talk) 16:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Sorry to take so long - this looks pretty close to ready for FAC to me, but here are some suggestions for improvement. I am glad to see an article on a larger river get close to FA too! I am going to start the review now and continue it later (tomorrow hopefully).

I imagine you've already seen them, but there are 8 stream articles which are FA that may be useful models at Category:FA-Class River articles
In the lead, this needs a metric equivalent too (0.2 km/h or so): The St. Johns, like most Florida waterways, has a very slow flow rate at a third of a mile an hour, and is often described as "lazy".[1] (Is it also descibed as "good for nothin'"? ;-)
Maybe I am just used to rivers along the southern edge of Lake Erie that run generally north, but I can think of quite a few that do so just in Ohio - Maumee River, Vermilion River (Ohio), Cuyahoga River, Sandusky River. I am guessing It is one of the few rivers in North America to run north. might be a bit too broad a claim
I think most river people think of river size in terms of length, drainage basin area, and discharge - the last is not in the lead, but probably should be.
I am also unclear on exactly what Comprising a drainage basin greater than the area of six states at 8,840 square miles (22,900 km2)... means - I looked up the EPA ref, but that did not help (and I see it makes the silly claim that it is "one of only three rivers in the nation that flow north"). Does it mean that the basin is larger in area than each of the six smallest US states? Or is it larger than the area of the six added together? It also bothers me that this claim is not repeated elsewhere in the article that I can see - the lead is a summary and should not make claims not repeated in the text (IMO).
I don't think anyone would complain if the lead were four paragraphs (not sure how to split the current lead / expand it though).
I would make it clearer that the 30 foot elevation drop (in 301 miles!) is why the river is so lazy and marshy and a series of lakes - there is not much gradient to flow down so the flow is S - L - O - W.
At the same time, the elevation of the source does not dictate the direction of flow of the river, the terrain / topography of the land does. So It flows north—which is generally an anomaly in North America—because its headwaters are slightly elevated at 30 feet (9.1 m) above sea level where the Lake Wales Ridge is located. needs to be rewritten.
I would make the caption for File:St Johns River basin map.png more explicit as the labels are not easy to read - perhaps "St Johns River basins: blue is the Upper St. Johns River Basin, Green is the Middle St. Johns River Basin, Yellow is the Georges Lake Basin..."
OK, there's a start - I will try to come back soon.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch poeer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:16, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Made some changes, most of them. Good suggestions.

The whole northern flowing river thing. An odd thing about this river. 3.5 million people live near it and it's almost as if there is a vast chasm of nothingness where the river is. I mean, the north flowing river factoid is repeated so often in sources, as if it's the only thing people are clinging to to make it seem special, as if otherwise the river would disappear just from people ignoring it. You read the one of three north flowing rivers fact from the EPA. The EPA, for God's sake...and they're not alone. If you read through the entire article you'll see the north-flowing thing is mentioned in a couple places. I'm going to leave the north-flowing facts alone to wait for your entire review. I'll be happy to revisit it then. Thanks, by the way, for the review. --Moni3 (talk) 12:16, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are very welcome for the review. I would defintely mention the north flowing course, and I think you could even say it is unusual or rare in North America. It might be it is the longest or perhaps largest (basin or discharge) north flowing river in North America too. You might want to ask at WP:RIVER. I would defintiely mention the Kissimme flowing south too - although you might want to make it clearer that they flow roughly parallel but in opposite directions over only about the southern third of the St. Johns River. Here are some more comments from the rest of the article:

I think this sentence It flows north—which is generally an anomaly in North America—because its headwaters are slightly elevated at 30 feet (9.1 m) above sea level where the Lake Wales Ridge is located. could read something like It flows north—which is unusual in North America—from its headwaters at the Lake Wales Ridge, which are only slightly elevated at 30 feet (9.1 m) above sea level.
Almost every river that flows into the ocean will ebb and flow with the tides for some of it length near the mouth - do you have any idea how far the tidal flow extends along its 301 miles? See the article on Columbia Slough (a FA), which is also quite flat / lazy and has tidal flow (although it goes into a tidal river).
The five basin map shows that part of Okeechobee County is also in the drainage basin. I do not doubt that the rtiver starts in Indian River County, butwould mention that it drains parts of Florida even further south.
A bit awkward: one county north of Indian River, Brevard, is where the St. Johns transforms into a navigable waterway
The basin sections might want to describe the watershed / drainage basin a bit more, as well as the course of the river. For example the article says the river touches the border of Osceola County, but the maps show about the eastern third of that county is in the basin. I usually describe course of the stream and its basin separately and am making comments as I read, so it might be you say this later.
It is not clear to me where the upper basin is - southern Florida? central Florida? Knowing this would make Rain in central and north Florida occurs in seasons during the summer and winter, but farther south rain in winter is rare.[14] clearer
Missing word? Of vertebrates, numerous species of frogs, salamanders, snakes, and turtles, and alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) proliferate [in?] marsh waters.
I like the gallery "Birds found in the middle and upper St. Johns River basins" but does it need a ref?
Word choice - would "also spelled as" be better in The Ocklawaha (also printed as Oklawaha) drainage basin expands through Orange, Lake, Marion, and Alachua Counties,
Could the date(s) be added to In particular, Lake Apopka earned the designation of Florida's most polluted lake.?
American eels section might benefit from a link to Fish migration
Lower basin first sentence might read better as something like In the lower basin the St. Johns extends 101 miles (163 km) from the intersection of the Ocklawaha River to the Atlantic Ocean; the lower basin drains a total area of 2,600 square miles (6,700 km2) in Putnam, St. Johns, Clay, and Duval Counties.
I thought St. Augustine (west coast) was the oldest town in Florida? Perhaps The towns and cities along the lower basin of the river are [among?] the oldest in Florida, ...
Need metric for 8 million tons of goods are shipped in and out of Jacksonville annually. (Probably short tons given)
What is "while oil"?? Oh wait - it is a conjection and petroleum - perhaps this could be clearer Exports include paper, phosphate, fertilizers, and citrus, while [major imports include] oil, coffee, limestone, cars, and lumber ~~are major imports~~.[49]
I would split the naval basers sentence into two (air bases get their own sentence)
Probably also good to satrt a new paragraph at Using an unofficial nickname of "The River City"...
I would link midden in apparent in the many middens left by the Timucua in mounds many feet high.

OK, done through basins - more later. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:37, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Last push - here goes

There is only one calcium carbonate (CaCO3), so this reads oddly During the Cretaceous period the basement and its sedimentary overlay were further covered by calcium carbonates... perhaps calcium carbonate layers is meant? or rocks?
Were the rivers created or was it the river valleys? The north to south rivers, such as the St. Johns, were created by past beach ridges which were often divided by swales.
Needs a time constraint: although drops may occur in winter months to below freezing approximately a dozen times [a year? a season?].
Avoid double negatives like Where the river widens between Palatka and Jacksonville, wind becomes a significant factor in navigation, and neither whitecap waves nor calm surface waters are uncommon. (also needs a ref)
I think there should be a zero before the decimal point for "0.81 ppt" in ... decreases to 2.9 ppt and falls again to .81 ppt at the Shands Bridge near Green Cove Springs.[70][71]
Needs a ref Around 9,000 years ago, the climate warmed, ... transition into Archaic people.
Be consistent - previously you gave common name, then linked the scientific name in parentheses - here it is just the scientific name the banks of the St. Johns and its arteries are dotted with middens filled with thousands of oyster and other types of shells, primarily those of Viviparus georgianus.[76][77]
I like the note on names, but as the largest city on the river I think the fact that Jacksonville is named for Andrew Jackson should be in the main text (especially when Poinsett is in there earlier).
I do not undertand the last clause in ...stated that before Disston's purchase and the subsequent development, the only places worth seeing in Florida were Jacksonville and St. Augustine, with perhaps an overnight trip on the St. Johns River to Palatka; by 1883 that had extended 250 miles (400 km) south.[108] what had extended 250 miles south? Development?
Needs a ref Much of the land was reclaimed for urban use, but agricultural needs took their toll as fertilizers and runoff from cattle ranching washed into the St. Johns. Without wetlands to filter the pollutants, the chemicals stayed in the river and flushed into the Atlantic Ocean. Boaters destroyed the floating islands of muck and weeds in the upper basin with dynamite, causing the lakes to drain completely.

OK, that's it - I know you usually get a copyedit, so I did not point out a few rough places. Overall a very nice well done article, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:44, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]