# Talk:1893 San Roque hurricane

This review is transcluded from Talk:1893 Hurricane San Roque/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Usernameunique (talk · contribs) 02:26, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Lead

Its informal name in Puerto Rico — The same comment is made below, but it's unclear why the informal name from one region is being used over another.
The PR name is far and away the more widely recognized one, being acknowledged by NOAA and a majority of sources, both contemporary and modern. WP:COMMONNAME, essentially. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
This was the first tropical cyclone event in Puerto Rico for which warning flags were used in conveying the level of danger to the public. — Is this really lead worthy? (It's also shortly after another sentence beginning "This was the...")
ctrl+f yields only one match for "This" in the lede. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Whoops. I was reading that in edit mode, and completely missed that the other instance was in a footnote. That said, is the warning flag part lead worthy? --Usernameunique (talk) 04:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I see what you mean. Removed that and another bit, so hopefully we're boiling down the intro to just the important stuff. – Juliancolton | Talk 14:03, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
recorded on Block Island. — Necessary?
It's only a few words, and adds useful context IMO. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Four sentences on Dorcas and Etta Stewart seems excessive.
Condensed a bit. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
The lead references August 22, then moves back to August 21.
August 22 reference moved to create chronological coherence. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
In general, the lead seems somewhat long and could probably be trimmed some more.
It's certainly beefy, but given the breadth of impact (deep tropics, US, a large swath of Canada, plus multiple maritime tragedies) I think it's appropriate. MOS:LEDELENGTH prescribes 2-3 paragraphs for articles of this size, so two substantial paras would be within reason. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Puerto Rico

Any way to break up this long section with one or more subsections?
I've thought about this for a bit and am unable to come up with a strong solution. The impacts in PR are fairly uniform, and given it's a pretty small island, there aren't many distinct geographical regions upon which to base subheaders. Once again, suggestions would be greatly appreciated. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
leaving many residents unable to reach their homes for the night — Any word on where they spent the night?
Sadly, no word from the source. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Many gas lanterns were broken and an electric light lost its power supply. — What electric light?
Removed for lack of detail. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
numerous head of cattle killed. — Is this correct? Numerous heads of cattle? Numerous cattle?
Head of cattle is the correct pluralization. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Sea baths along the shore were destroyed. — Seems somewhat out of place in a paragraph about damage to ships.
Well, I guess I thought of it more as a paragraph about coastal impacts. Ships and beach facilities. Can move if necessary. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
500,000 Puerto Rican pesos. — Is there a way to convert this to something meaningful?
Frankly, I came up empty when I tried tying it to any other currency. I consulted with a few other natural disaster editors who all seemed to agree that posting the value with no comparison was better than not at all, so I'm not sure what to think.
The last paragraph starts out by discussing economic loss, then jumps to the etymology of the storm's name, then discusses retrospective views of the storm, and then pivots to its fatalities.
Well, it rounds out the overall impact with the most important figures and bits of historical context. I could rearrange the order of the sentences I suppose...? – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Overall

Juliancolton, this looks pretty good. Has anything been said about the storm subsequently? For instance, given its destructiveness in some places, did it make some sort of a cultural impact such that talk of the storm continued for some time, and that would warrant a section on the subsequent history? --Usernameunique (talk) 04:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for your detailed review, and for your helpful edits! Your time and efforts are both greatly appreciated. I'll begin working on this later in the day. Regards, – Juliancolton | Talk 15:24, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Okay, my initial fixes have been applied and responses posted where further action may be required. Your suggestions and edits (especially the arduous task of remedying my over-linking) have really helped improve the article. Thank you! Respectfully, I must object to two of your changes. First, per WP:SHE4SHIPS, both "she" and "it" are acceptable pronouns, as long as they are used consistently within the article. I'm increasingly opposed to the use of feminine pronouns when discussing things that have no gender, so I'd like to restore the gender-neutral pronouns if possible. Also, while I appreciate the reason for removing the time zones in the lede, I feel they were necessary in these cases. 00:00 UTC on August 17 was still the evening of August 16 local time, so that could lead to some confusion (and, where multiple time zones are involved, it's preferable to use universal time). – Juliancolton | Talk 19:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Juliancolton, this looks good. The lead still seems a bit on the long side, but at least reads naturally. Likewise, the sections on Puerto Rico, the United States, and Canada could all seemingly use some subsections, but I agree with you that I'm not sure where they would logically go. In any event, those are small concerns in what is clearly a good article, so I'm passing it now. --Usernameunique (talk) 01:39, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be moved to 1893 San Roque hurricane? To the people who view this page "que no hablan Español" (that don't speak Spanish), 1893 Hurricane San Roque will sound sort of weird. 
Some examples:

1876 San Felipe hurricane is not 1876 Hurricane San Felipe
1899 San Ciriaco hurricane is not 1899 Hurricane San Ciriaco
1932 San Ciprian hurricane is not 1932 Hurricane San Ciprian...
so 1893 San Roque hurricane is not 1893 Hurricane San Roque! 🐔Chicdat ChickenDatabase 10:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
@Chicdat: I think you may have a point. The current name jives better with the Spanish of the time, but as you say, this is the English Wikipedia – and there's limited though fairly unequivocal precedence. I have no objections to the proposed move, though I wouldn't mind first hearing from the GA reviwer, Usernameunique. Any thoughts? – Juliancolton | Talk 23:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Chicdat & Juliancolton, that makes sense to me as well. "San Roque hurricane" did sound a bit odd when I first saw it. There are slightly more Google hits for "hurricane San Roque" than there are for "San Roque hurricane" (374 vs. 200), although this may be influenced by the Wikipedia name, and the numbers are low to begin with. I also think the convention for article titles is fairly important, and the ones listed by Chicdat suggest that a renaming would be in keeping with convention. So unless anyone has a compelling reason otherwise, I'd say go for it and make the move. With that said, I'd appreciate it if you hold off until I finish the GA review, as moving pages during that process can complicate things; I'll jump in and see if there's anything further that needs addressing now. --Usernameunique (talk) 01:28, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
The GA review is finished now (I can tell by looking at the top of this page). Should I (or someone else) move it now? Thanks for the feedback, 🐔Chicdat ChickenDatabase 10:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Moved. Thanks for pointing this out, Chicdat! :) – Juliancolton | Talk 15:36, 21 April 2020 (UTC)