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Good articleSanta Ana River has been listed as one of the Geography and places good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
February 16, 2010 Good article nomineeListed


GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Santa Ana River/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: WTF? ( talk) 15:06, 14 February 2010 (UTC) reply

This article is in quite good shape, after a few minor copyedits that were really easier to fix myself. I think it's mostly there in terms of the six good article criteria, and can be promoted following a few minor adjustments.

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b ( MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c ( OR):
    The citations meet the criteria and guidelines for GA. I made a minor change to how they're sorted at the end, based on established wikipedia conventions. Moving towards WP:FA, the citations should ideally be converted to citation templates, and full citation information should be included for them (e.g. author, title, publisher, date of publication, date URL retrieved, etc). There's several citations missing author information.
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
    Most of the major topics that I would expect in this article are covered, so I would say it's reasonably complete with respect to good article requirements.
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
    The article is written in a neutral tone. No WP:NPOV violations.
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
    Most edits are by Shannonchan. There is no evidence in the history or talk page of WP:3RR violations or edit-warring.
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
    Most images are tagged and caption appropriately. I love the image of the lizard, which I was almost going to hammer at editors for putting a picture of dirt, but then I found the well-camouflaged lizard! There is one image that has a non-free/fair use rationale, but no image copyright tag, so this needs to be fixed prior to GA.
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:
    The article can be promoted pending a couple of minor changes. See below for more specifics.
  • "Here, the river is entirely confined to a concrete flood control channel between earthen levees. Near Santa Ana the riverbed again becomes earthen as it flows to its mouth between Huntington Beach and Newport Beach." -- I'm not getting this statement. In Anaheim, the river is surrounded by "earthen levees", but then beyond the city, it becomes earthen again? When did it change back?
  • File:1938 flood Santa Ana River.jpg -- There is a non-free/fair use rationale in the image description, but no image copyright tag.
  • The list of tributaries at the end of the article is a very long, bulleted list. It would be better suited to move this to a separate List of Santa Ana River Tributaries page, which could then be linked using a {{ seealso}} link to the top of either the 'course' section, or the 'watershed' section.
  • Similarly, the list of cities along the river would probably be better done if a category were created -- e.g. Category:Cities along the Santa Ana River. This category could then be linked in a 'see also' section near the end of the article.
  • I'd recommend a slight reordering of sections. Since the 'history' and 'present-day' sections are somewhat related, it would make more sense to have those two sections right next to each other. And 'ecology' seems more related to some of the earlier sections, like 'geology'. So it should be moved up. Likewise, 'watershed' seems like it would fit better closer to 'course'. So I would suggest the following for the section order:
course, watershed, geology, ecology, history, present-day activities (renamed from 'The present-day river'), river crossings, see also (with links to cities & tributaries), notes, references, external links.

I will leave the article on hold for GA status until 2/28/2010 while these issues are addressed. Once that's fixed, the article can be listed at WP:GA. Cheers! WTF? ( talk) 15:06, 14 February 2010 (UTC) reply

I have responded to your comments; I have also created a category for cities and a separate page for tributaries. Shannon talk contribs 01:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC) reply

Additional items of concern

I have not reviewed a Wikipedia article previously, but will be watching how the GA review goes so I know how to do it in the future. I will also post some comments here about things I think could be improved, or at least considered. Hope it helps. MissionInn.Jim ( talk) 01:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC) reply

  • 1) This article is about a river. It doesn't seem appropriate to include the municipality and metropolitan templates at the end. Also, Orange County Rivers is included twice.
I have also been watching this page for a long time now, and I agree with MissionInn.Jim, so I have removed the metropolitan/municipality templates. House1090 ( talk) 03:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC) reply
  • 2) The opening sentence states that it is a "major" river, and later it says the drainage basin is "large and diverse". It sounds like you are artificially inflating the importance or size. I would call the Mississippi, the Sacramento, and the Potomac major with large drainage basins, but not the Santa Ana. MissionInn.Jim ( talk) 01:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC) reply
Just to compare it with other rivers and streams in the region; what would you suggest changing it to? Shannon talk contribs 01:13, 16 February 2010 (UTC) reply
I made some changes to make the article more neutral. I hope I didn't distort your original intent too much. MissionInn.Jim ( talk) 02:36, 16 February 2010 (UTC) reply
  • 3) Under "Recreation", the article states that Big Bear Lake, Lake Elsinore, and Lake Irvine are not in the watershed. I don't know about Lake Irvine, but I believe Big Bear and Elsinore are in the watershed. Big Bear Lake feeds a branch of the Bear Creek tributary and I believe Lake Elsinore flows down Temescal Canyon, via Temescal Creek, to the Santa Ana, whenever it overflows, as it did in 1872, 1883, 1917, and 1980. MissionInn.Jim ( talk) 01:02, 16 February 2010 (UTC) reply
I think you misinterpreted that, but I do agree it was kind of confusing, because what it was meant to mean was that the river doesn't flow through any of those lakes. I reworded the statement so that it would be more clear. Shannon talk contribs 01:16, 16 February 2010 (UTC) reply
OK. That make more sense. Thanks. MissionInn.Jim ( talk) 02:36, 16 February 2010 (UTC) reply

It looks like most of these comments have been addressed except for the "major river" issue. Before I promote this to GA, this should probably be addressed. In comparison to say, the Colorado River, I'm not so sure I'd call this "major". Even the article on the James River in Virginia, being 410 miles long (four times this) doesn't state that it's a "major river". Of course, I could see arguments for calling it a "major river" since it is in the Los Angeles Metro area, too. WTF? ( talk) 01:49, 16 February 2010 (UTC) reply

I'll take a try at modifying the overstatements, e.g. "major". I won't be offended if anyone want's to modify what I come up with. MissionInn.Jim ( talk) 01:59, 16 February 2010 (UTC) reply

It looks like MissionInn.Jim is now satisfied, and I am satisfied that the article meets the GA criteria, so it can be listed. Nice work to all! Thanks for the added comments! WTF? ( talk) 02:55, 16 February 2010 (UTC) reply

Cabrillo and the Santa Ana River

Of the two sources cited for the history section (the History of the Santa Ana River and From Crest to Coast), the first doesn't bother cite any sources and the second (which looks merely to be some popular book written by someone who doesn't appear to be a historian) doesn't have any footnotes or (apparently) references. Both simply state that Cabrillo passed the mouth of the river, but don't explicitly state whether he actually saw it. Could anyone confirm with a reliable, well-cited source written by an expert that he really did sight the river's mouth? OldBabyBlue ( talk) 03:50, 22 January 2011 (UTC) reply

File:Santa Ana River.JPG: Looking south???

If that's looking south... how come the shadows are heading off towards the back and left? Looks more like its looking "north". Famartin ( talk) 10:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC) reply

The photo is looking south/south-east. The photo was taken in Mira Loma, perhaps from Limonite Avenue, or from 66th St. & Etiwanda Ave. In the distance are the La Sierra Hills. The greenery on the hills is Crestlawn Memorial Park on Arlington Avenue (, and that distant greenery extends to the right towards Norco. On the other side (e.g., closer to the river) of Arlington Avenue is the Hidden Valley Wildlife Area. The river at that point is meandering east to west. The shadows on the nearby riverbank are correct for an afternoon photo.
Even so, the direction on the photo is not helpful. The river runs NE-SW, and adding a particular direction description of a photo view would distract. -- S. Rich ( talk) 15:39, 26 October 2012 (UTC) reply

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