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- The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was delisted by Casliber via FACBot (talk) 2:37, 16 February 2018 (UTC) [1].
- Notified: WikiProject Houston, WikiProject Cities, WikiProject Texas
Review section
I am nominating this featured article for review because...
- There are statements failing verification from citations. Please see section on History, and section on Crime, as two examples.
- There is much outdated material. Some material could be replaced with new data; other material should be retained and supplemented with new data. Another editor placed a request to update the Transportation section in 2016, but there has been little change since last year.
- There is unsourced material in the History section.
{{{1}}}The History section is not comprehensive. There is a main article History of Houston, but this has been largely unsourced for years. I recommend as a part of improving the Houston article to improve its context within Wikipedia relative to several important Houston-related articles. This would allow the main article to be comprehensive, but offering greater detail indirectly through links to related articles.
- Some parts of the article have become a Christmas tree, with Houston's appearance on various rankings. Could these be updated or culled? Some segments reads like spare parts thrown together. Sometimes people just have a little factoid to post, and that is their contribution. Editing these segments to better unify the narrative would help.
These are several categories of issues with the Houston article, and this I compiled from a fairly cursory reading. As I continue to check citations, this list could grow.
However, I hope this is not too negative. There must have been a great effort and good work by many various editors to bring this article to FA back in 2007. This is more than ten years later and it appears that the article needs a comprehensive effort. For those Houstonians who are are still cleaning up after Harvey, or helping others doing the same, there could be nothing more important. But not everyone interested in improving the Houston article currently lives in the region.
Thank you for reading, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 17:21, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Total area and land area
The citation from 2009 cites a land area of a bit over 599 miles while the text reads 667 miles, which is given elsewhere as the total area.
- Has the total area and land area increased since 2009?
- What is the correct source for these figures?
- Geography nerds: what is the correct denominator for population density: land area or total area? (Since people don't usually live on the water.)
In any case, the article and the citation disagree.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Lead section has old links
Some citations link to articles from 2010, 2011, and 2012. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:18, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Land purchase, founding of Houston
A statement in the History section is incorrect:
- The sale of land from the Parrotts to the Allens did not occur on August 30. It was August 26, 1836
- August 30, 1836 is the date that the Allen brothers first advertised their land scheme.
- The Parrotts did not sell 1.5 leagues (6,642 acres) to the Allens. They sold a half league (2,214 acres).
- The Parrotts did not sell land to the Allens in consideration of over $9,000. They sold it for $5,000.
- Two days prior, on August 24, 1836, the Allens did buy one league (4,428 acres) for $4,428 from the estate of John Austin's brother. There is no indication that the Allens had plans for developing this land. This is difficult to source (original research) because this ended up being a convoluted transaction, and many writers try to simplify the story by combining the two transactions. Sometimes writers combined the two transactions incorrectly.
Second, when Houstonians claim that the city was founded August 30, 1836, the significance of this date is the famous advertisement that the Allen placed. For some reason, people attempt to attach other events to this date.
Sports: claim fails verification
"It is the only MLB team to have won pennants in both modern leagues." The Astros just won their first AL pennant last month, but the sentence is followed by a citation to a web site last retrieved in 2013. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 02:23, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Infobox: area
Perhaps there is are editors who have already vetted these numbers and who are still on Wikipedia. I know it is tempting for other editors to change one of the numbers in a way that renders the other number correct. Confession: A few years ago, I think I changed a total population number without changing the density number, for example. I apologize to those who were trying to keep the page in good order. In any case, these current numbers are inconsistent:
Area
• City 667 sq mi (1,625.2 km2) (I have seen 599.6 elsewhere.)
• Land 639.1 sq mi (1,642.1 km2)
• Water 667 sq mi (1,625.2 km2) (I have seen 27-ish elsewhere.)
• Metro 10,062 sq mi (26,060 km2)
Once these correct numbers are reintroduced, I would agree to monitor them for unhelpful edits. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 10:48, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Geography statement fails verification
Houston#Geography:
"The Piney Woods are north of Houston. Most of Houston is located on the gulf coastal plain, and its vegetation is classified as temperate grassland and forest. Much of the city was built on forested land, marshes, swamp, or prairie which resembles the Deep South, and are all still visible in surrounding areas. The flatness of the local terrain, when combined with urban sprawl, has made flooding a recurring problem for the city."
Here is the archived link from the citation.
If I have read this correctly, this links to dry paper on the modeling of measurement of storm events, without any characterization of regional features or analysis of flooding. I agree with some of the statements, but this is not what the linked source talks about.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 11:58, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
FARC section
- Moving to get some more opinions on the state of this article. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:30, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Delist—nobody seems interested in addressing the issues above. —Deckiller (t-c-l) 16:21, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Gray Matters and the founding story
@Lithiumaneurysm:
Your edits on the article are great. I would like to raise an issue about a bit of text that you retained.
The lede in the article contains the statement, "Houston was founded by land speculators on August 30, 1836." This has been in the article for awhile and I have challenged it the past. Certainly this is supported by a consensus of secondary sources on the subject, so it is a verifiable claim in the WP sense. However, the citation used refers to a column from the Houston Chronicle which does not repeat this claim. Lisa Gray seems to be ridiculing the notion instead, "Yes: Houston sprang into being as ad copy." She does not endorse the standard story of Houston. The article could use Gray as a source and describe August 30, 1836 as the date of the first newspaper advertisement for Houston. Gray is challenging the old boosterism version of Houston's beginnings. Maybe we should follow her lead. Sincerely, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 12:27, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oldsanfelipe, excellent points—seems I didn't read the Gray Matters column closely enough. I see the debate over the founding date has been going on for nearly a year now. Perhaps the language should be amended to fit the source—"Houston was first advertised" or "Houston was publicly proclaimed." Or the wording could be obfuscated ("Houston was founded in 1836"). LithiumAneurysm (talk) 22:28, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
- Anticipating questions about NPOV, OR, and UNDUE, here are some other sources to draw from, all of which characterize August 30, 1836 as the date of the advertisement without referencing it as the “founding” of Houston:
- Marilyn McAdams Sibley, The Port of Houston: A History (33), “In August, 1836, the Allens acquired the tract, drew a paper city, and named it for General Sam Houston, then at the peak of his popularity as the wounded hero of San Jacinto.” And “On August 30, only five days after they had acquired the site, they began advertising the city in the Columbia Telegraph and Texas Register and other newspapers, presenting as its first qualification the fact that it was the head of navigation on Buffalo Bayou…” [After the ellipse are quotes from the famous ad.]
- Sibley (34), “Such promotions were fairly common in the United States and later became so in Texas, but the Allens’ advertisement was the only one of its kind that appeared in the Telegraph during August or for months thereafter.” In all, Sibley devoted five paragraphs to this newspaper advertisement.
- Louis Aulbach, Buffalo Bayou: An echo of Houston’s Wilderness Beginnings (305–306), “Although an advertisement in the newspaper of August 30, 1836 touted the establishment of the new town of Houston, efforts to clear the pine grove and drain the prairie ponds at the site of the 62 blocks platted in November 1836 by Gail Borden as the new town did not begin until after the First Congress of the Republic had designated the new town of Houston as the capital of the Republic in December, 1836.”
- David McComb, Houston: A History (9–11) quotes the advertisement in full. He does not characterize August 30, 1836 as the founding date.
- McComb’s Handbook of Texas article says, “The city began on August 30, 1836, when Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen ran an advertisement in the Telegraph and Texas Register for the "Town of Houston."” No use of “founded,” though we might question whether “began” is correct. (It should be noted that this article was modified on February 15, 2017 and I don’t have the text for the previous version. Did McComb rewrite the article himself?)
- Sibley and McComb were both history professors. I do not know about Aulbach’s credentials. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 10:34, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Problems with using Gray Matters as a source
I am wondering if the Gray Matters column at the Houston Chronicle is opinion-commentary. It would be like using a David Brooks or Maureen Dowd column from the New York Times as a source for Wikipedia.
In addition, Gray claims the Allen brothers land deals for Houston totaled 8,850 acres. That corresponds to the approximate acreage of two leagues when they only bought 1.5 leagues, or about 6,642 acres, supported by historian David McComb, for one. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 13:53, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Questions about population, 2014
Questions about population and land area were raised in 2014: Talk:Houston/Archive_10#Population and [Estimate updates]. The second illustrates an issue shared with many US PLACES articles: an editor changes a population number without updating the citation. Sometimes this is impatience; other times a reflection of the lack of stable URLs at the US Census web sites. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 15:00, 10 July 2018 (UTC) Edited once by Oldsanfelipe (talk) 15:06, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Questions about land area, 2016
Legitimate question at Talk:Houston/Archive_10#Area was never addressed. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 15:06, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Notable People
I added in Notable People from Houston, TX. This should highlight some of the creatives and celebs that came from this great city! — Preceding unsigned comment added by MCO425 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
- I removed what you added. It was unsourced and misplaced. ~ GB fan 15:08, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
Quality images?
There are currently no quality images of Houston at Wikimedia Commons. None have been promoted to valued or featured status. Anyone know of some great images to nominate? ---Another Believer (Talk) 14:34, 20 May 2019 (UTC)