Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Grand Forks, North Dakota

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 15:54, 26 July 2007.

Grand Forks, North Dakota

previous FAC

I feel that the article now has the standard of being FA status. It is thoroughly written, with a consistent flow, and is very well cited (with over 100 citations).--milk the cows (Talk) 21:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support As the main contributor to this article over the last few years, I think it is now worthy of FA status. The article has been very well sourced and the text is informative, flows well, and gives a very good overview of what the subject is about. --MatthewUND^(talk) 21:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support The article is thoroughly cited, flows well, and is very informative. Weatherman90 21:51, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support The article is comparable to other featured articles for U.S. cities of similar size (e.g. Ann Arbor, Michigan). It is particularly well referenced, drawing from many diverse sources.--Hokeman 20:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The image in the Government looks ugly when it's outside of the little table there. -- Phoenix2 ^(holla) 01:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose This article is pretty long, it feels like the editors have been trying to cramp every available information (e.g. Health Care) into it. However, the article should serve only as an introduction.Coloane 18:45, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I think that the length is perfect; look at FA Detroit, Michigan, its 20 kilobytes longer. As far as health care, why shouldn't it be there? Its part of the city. Weatherman90 01:05, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This is North Dakota, where there aren't any cities with more than 100,000 people (besides maybe Fargo now), and Grand Forks is a health care center in terms of ND and northwest Minnesota--milk the cows (Talk) 18:52, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment While the article is not long compared to other FA cities, Grand Forks is a small town and I feel that the article is in general too detailed, and, as user Coloane said, is not a mere introduction to the city. My suggestions below should help with that.

The lead of the article is too long for an article of this size. It must only cover the most important points and emphasize them according to how they are emphasized in the body. From the body, I see no reason why the city's racial makeup should be in the lead, as it is barely mentioned in the body and not a highlight of the article. Also, the comment that the city has "mostly recovered from the flooding" should not be in the lead - the mention of the flood alone is the important highlight, not the fact that the city has recovered. Also, consider removing the statements that the city has a system of parks and theatres. I'm not hung up on it, but consider it a strong suggestion since the lead needs to be shorter and every city has parks, etc.
There should be no one or two sentence paragraphs. Even try to limit the number of three sentence paragraphs.
There are too many short subsections; there's no need to break the article up so much. For instance, "sports" and "recreation" should be combined into just sports. Transportation and Healthcare could be combined into one "Infrastructure" section. Take away subheadings below "Cityscape." Combine "sites of interest" into appropriate sections: there are mentions of sports arenas, cultural centers, and shopping areas - move these to sports, culture, and economy, respectively. But make sure none of it is redundant, as it seems like much of it is. (In reality, the "shopping" section should be removed all together - we don't need to know about the city's malls and stores. This isn't a cityguide, its an encyclopedia article.) - The recreation section is ok if you want to leave it like that
~~Remove famous residents list.~~ Make a new article and link it to the "see also" section.
~~The sister cities section is way too long. This is way too much detail about a topic that has nothing to do with the city itself. Remove the vast majority of it.~~
~~Remove red links.~~
~~Remove parentheses within the prose. Integrate information within the parentheses into the actual sentence.~~
While I understand about the lack of free-use images on the web, I would love to see more pictures in this article, though it may look less text-dominated after the sites of interest and other sections have been removed, shortened, and integrated. Nevertheless, surely there must be someone with pictures of Grand Forks. However, I would not oppose this article for not being able to acquire more pictures.
It seems like there is much repeating going on. For example, UND is talked about in many different sections, commercial areas are talked about in different sections, as are sports, culture, etc. Limit topics to their respective sections only, please. It would make the article much more concise, instead of having key bits of economic, sports, education, and tourism information sprinkled about everywhere. - I didn't read the article word for word again, but from skimming through the article this looks better.
On the other hand, I am completely satisfied with the number of citations! :) Okiefromokla•talk 02:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing - ref #57 is broken. Okiefromokla•talk 02:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've spent the last few hours implementing many of the changes you suggested. I think the article is now in even better shape than it was before your suggestions. I really appreciate your advice and thoughts on the article. I still need to do some work on the intro, but I'm not sure if it is really that long. You're right that a little condensing is in order though. Thanks again for the feedback! --MatthewUND^(talk) 09:25, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good job. Previously, the article looked choppy and incomplete with so many short sentences and sections, but now it looks much fuller and more pleasant, it reads better, and it looks like it has more information even though the article's overall size has decreased. About the lead; I just did a character count of the body in MS Word, and the prose has less than 20,000 characters. According to WP:LEAD, a four paragraph lead is only warranted for an article with a body of greater than 30,000 characters. The recommendation of WP:LEAD is for an article of this size to have a 2 to 3 paragraph lead. Right now, the lead is at the longest I would want for any large city article, but for an article of this size, three concise but informative paragraphs no longer than the current paragraph size is what I would be satisfied with, provded they adequately summarize the article. No need to rewrite the lead completely, just remove the more detailed facts and condense information. The only other real issue I see is the geography section. Both the geography and climate subsections could be at least a few sentences longer. There has to be something more you can say about the region's geography and topography. In all, the article has improved considerably and provided that my remaining concerns are met, I will gladly support it. Okiefromokla•talk 17:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, could there possibly be another picture of the river or a park to go in culture? And some of the article's current pictures have a tag for needing a different license. Okiefromokla•talk 17:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've tried to shorten/condense the lead. I've added a bit to the climate section (taken from the main climate article). I'm not sure what to add to the geography section...this part of the country doesn't have too many notable geographic traits. The city is flatter than you could probably imagine...nothing even remotely likes hills and no lakes. I looked at the images and I think they now all have ok tags. Any ideas on that geography thing? --MatthewUND^(talk) 09:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It was close. I know I sound nit-picky, but I went ahead and did a sample edit by editing the lead down to its most basic condensed possible outcome. Obviously, feel free to revert it or change it to whatever specifications you wish, as this is just to show you some of the words I removed for reference. Its not a big deal. I understand about the flatness haha. I used to live in Nebraska. It was flat. But it's ok, the geography section is actually satisfactory now. Its a good article; it will be one of the favorite FAs. I'll see what you do to the lead from here and then I'll support it. Okiefromokla•talk 17:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be sure to take some photographs of downtown, the Red River, Alerus Center/Canad Inn, REA/BESC, and anything else that should be worthy.--milk the cows (Talk) 19:45, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm not fortunate enough to have a digital camera, but I think some new pics of local landmarks would be a wonderful addition to this and other GF/EGF articles. --MatthewUND^(talk) 09:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.