Talk:White Deer Hole Creek

message: Any and all feedback appreciated. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 03:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Just from one editor to another, congratulations on an article largely written by yourself. I'm almost to that level of Wikipedia fluency with my creations, but I still tend to get rocky FA nominations up to a certain point. --Zeality 05:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: FA Comments

message: As I said at FAC, this article is there. But that doesn't mean it can't be improved.
I printed it out and went through it with a red pen. I just got finished implementing my improvements, and here's a brief summary of the general things I did. Mainly these are things to keep in mind for future fascinating articles about minor tributaries of the Susquehanna.
*Second references: There were a number of times where the same long proper noun ("Tiadaghton State Forest", "Pennsylvania Route 44") was repeatedly and unnecessarily reused. I get the feeling you worked on different sections at a time ... when you do that, before submitting it to PR, GA or FA, it's a good idea to look the whole thing over and see how it plays as a whole. Fortunately there was no repeated information, just terms. Which says a lot for the editor.
*Wikification: The article now has links to narrow gauge, fish stocks, the whitewater classification system, and "U.S. state", to help better explain those terms when they come up. In many cases they helped tighten up the prose, too ("stocked with trout for fishing" was a little redundant IMO). 
*Proper metric measures. I changed the liters in the sewer plant discharge to cubic meters, which I believe is preferred in that context. Also, I know it's officially considered deprecated but I personally use hectares for land areas less than one square km.
*"Class A Wild Trout Waters": This is used often enough but the explanation/definition doesn't come until about the third reference. So I moved the definition and reference into the intro.
*Some general prose awkwardness: "In winter, trails may be used for cross-country skiing and there are dedicated cross-country and snowmobile trails." That sentence says the same thing twice. It reads like some helpful anon dropped in and wanted to say something but couldn't figure out where to put it. So I streamlined it.
*DMS coordinates in the main text. Absolutely no excuse for that where it's not absolutely necessary. Especially when we have the  template for that sort of thing. So I put them and it together under external links.
Now, to two things that I couldn't address:
*Images: The article isn't lacking for images, and the ones in it are superb ... they make this hiker want to go check it out. But a) if the Mid State Trail allows you to hike up the headwaters beyond the source, would a picture of the source be possible to get with some bushwhacking? I think all our river and stream articles should have a picture of the source if possible (I would also suggest waiting for warmer weather to get some consistency in the pictures. Which, of course, means that in PA you're likely to be getting chewed up by thorn bushes if a significant amount of off-trail is involved. But such are the demands of our wikimuse).Also, the article discusses all those leftover bunkers in the last grafs. It's a little dry imagewise there ... it seems like it would be very easy if there are so many to go take a picture of one.
*Discharge: There's no figure on the creek's discharge. If I didn't know the realities of streamflow measurement, I'd consider that an FA dealbreaker. But I do, and it wouldn't surprise me — well, actually it does given how that stream looks at its mouth — that the USGS hasn't set up a streamflow gauge station at least there. Have there been any attempts over the years to estimate the creek's discharge? If not, at least put something in the infobox explaining that this data point is unmeasured.
Once again, great article that does so many things right (You deserve especial praise, and perhaps a barnstar, for producing an FA with no redlinks whatsoever. Given the local peculiarity of some of the linked articles, that's no mean feat). Daniel Case 20:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  My edits, and some questions 

message: After a lot of looking and prompted by Daniel Case's question, I found and added discharge data, as well as two more references on discharge. Ruhrfisch 22:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes after FA 

message: The article says that "John's father Caleb built a mill on the creek by 1789."  John's father was, however, actually names John Farley (this older John is one of my ancestors).  The source that is given for the information (http://www.usgennet.org/usa/pa/county/lycoming/history/Chapter-39.html) actually agrees with this (it indicates that John's father was John, and that John built the mill). 
Also, see ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/pa/lycoming/history/local/whitedeer.txt, which is a transcription of an article appearing in the "Lycoming Gazette and West Branch Bulletin" in 1870.  It contains part of an interview with John Farley (which is what is alluded to in the other source).  John says that he "came here into this valley with my father, John Farley, in 1787."
Caleb Farley was a brother of the older John, and actually did come to White Deer Hole Valley (either with John or a few years later). KarlderGroße (talk) 03:10, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor Problem with Name section 

message: The first sentence of the "Watershed" section says, "The White Deer Hole Creek watershed is in Clinton (0.08%), Lycoming (4.40%), and Union (3.67%) counties." Shouldn't they add up to 100 percent? Finetooth (talk) 22:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I see what must be the correct figures slightly further down (in the third paragraph of the same section). Finetooth (talk) 22:17, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have struggled with how to clearly present this information - what is meant is that the White Deer Hole Creek watershed that is in Clinton County is 0.08% of Clinton County, 4.40% of Lycoming Co. is in it, and 3.67% of all of Union County is in it. If you have an idea for how to express this more clearly, I would like to hear it. Thanks, Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 02:34, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: How about "The White Deer Hole Creek watershed consists of 0.08 percent of the surface of Clinton County, 4.40 percent of the surface of Lycoming County, and 3.67 percent of the surface of Union County"? Finetooth (talk) 04:35, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea, but would you be OK with "surface area" or even just "area" instead of just "surface"? Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 04:39, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure. Either would be fine. Perhaps plain "area" is best. This brings a peculiar thought to mind. In a place with a great deal of vertical relief, the actual surface would be much bigger than the land's length times its width. I wonder if topographers have a name for that other measurement, a land's surface as opposed to its simple geometric area? Finetooth (talk) 04:51, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I will change it just plain area, thanks. My guess is that there are several specialist terms (although I don't know them). Rivers have River miles (distance from where a tributary enters the main stem to the mouth of the main stem) for example. They also have relief ratio and meander ratio (see meander). Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 10:54, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Minor math problem

message: I found this creek on Reading Howell's 1792 Map Of The State Of Pennsylvania. Would it be worth mentioning or linking to this map in the article? According to the host, the images are available under cc-by-sa, so we should even be able to upload them to commons. –Sarregouset (talk) 23:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right about the copyright; I'll work at uploading it. And thanks for mentioning your revert, as I was going to question you. Perhaps I didn't use the best wording, but that sentence really confused me. Would 'flow through' be more suitable than 'originate'? Also, that was not the only change I made, as I noted in my edit summary. The list of animal names at the end of the article alternates between singular and plural forms, and it seems 'squirrel' (and 'hawk', I just noticed) should be capitalized for consistency. –Sarregouset (talk) 00:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I use popups and previewed the changes you made but did not look at it as a full diff. In the process I only saw the first part and missed all of your later plural edits, sorry. I am fine with flow through. Although this article is FA, updating parts of it is on my short term list of things to do - there was a CCC camp west of Elimsport that built many of the forest roads and paths in the watershed (need to add this and the ref), I need to update the Infobox to a Geobox, and I was going to be consistent about species names being capitalized but other plant and animal names not being capitalized (so White-tailed deer but trout). Please feel free to tweak the description of the gap tribs and pluralize names. Sorry for the confusion, Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 01:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I figured that's what happened, but I'm glad we resolved it. I put my changes back; right now all the names are capitalized, but you're right non-species names could be lowercase if it's consistent. By the way, I'm having trouble uploading the map, as it's 160 MB right now, so it won't be up tonight. I'll have to crop to the area we're interested in. –Sarregouset (talk) 01:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Hopefully I can do my cleanups in the next week or less. Yes please upload the map or a section of it, Commons has a size limit of 20 MB, IIRC. The article already mentions Scull's map and a few others (in Donehoo's book) in the Name section. I like the map - could it be an External link and in Commons? Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 01:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: Finetooth comments: I tried to be thorough and treated this article pretty much the same as one coming to Peer Review. Excellent article, wonderful photos. I believe it taught me a new trick or two to apply to Tryon Creek, which is far less than half-baked at the moment. 
Lead
*"White Deer Hole Creek is a 20.5-mile (33.0 km) long tributary" - I'm not sure "long" is needed. 
*Not everyone agrees, but linking U.S. state might be unnecessary.
*"the creek and its 67.2 square miles (174.0 km2) watershed" - Needs a hyphen.
*"with 28.4% of the watershed given to agriculture and 71.6% covered by forest..." - WP:MOS#Percentages leans toward spelling out "percent" in the main text. Exceptions exist for scientific and technical articles, tables, infoboxes, and complex listings such as, I imagine, the demographics stats in city articles.
*"The western part of White Deer Hole Creek has very high water quality and is the only major creek in Lycoming County classified as "Class A Wild Trout Waters"... " - Since only the western part is Class A, I'd insert a word like "section" after "the only major creek". 
*"A logging railroad ran along the creek from 1901 to 1904 for timber clearcutting and small-scale lumbering continues." - This needs a comma between "clearcutting" and "and".
*"During World War II a TNT plant was built in the watershed, which became a federal prison in 1952." - Two things.  I'd be inclined to spell out trinitrotoluene before the abbreviation. Also, the watershed didn't become a federal prison, so I'd re-cast, probably as "During World War II, a trinitrotoluene (TNT) plant, which became a federal prison in 1952, was built in the watershed."
*"Most development is in the eastern end of the valley, with two unincorporated villages, the hamlet, and most of the farms (many Amish)." - This seems to be the first mention of a hamlet. What hamlet?
**Thanks, I have fixed all of these except for the linked U.S. state (if someone else delinks it I won't revert). I just changed "the hamlet" to "a hamlet" (it is Spring Gardens, the world famous metropolis). Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 19:42, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Review

message: Hi. I'd like to suggest that this article has a section covering the creek's ecological interest. There is some mention of this scattered across other sections (e.g. it's attractiveness to Trout, and the game species found in the area) but the article would merit a section covering this subject as a whole. SP-KP (talk) 09:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks - that is a good idea and I will work on it after the article is off the Main Page. Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 11:21, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion for additional content 

message: I removed "the U.S. state of" calling it "gratuitous overlinking".  I was reverted with "... restore link to U.S. State. I believe that it needs to be mentioned. not all know where PA is".  Now we have a compromise "delink US state, but leave it in as many outside the US are not as familiar with the states".
We certainly don't need to go back to linking U.S. State as it merely qualifies Pennsylvania, which itself is linked (two words after) and (naturally) links to U.S. State, and, more importantly, has next to nothing to do with this article.  When I saw sentence complete with the link to U.S. State it immediately struck me as having been twisted for the mere purpose of adding this useless link.  It's not uncommon for things on WP to be twisted around links.  So I deleted the lot.
Now it's back, unlinked, since many outside are not so familiar with the states & might not know where Pennsylvania is.  Fair enough, some of us non-Americans might not know that Pennsylvania is a US state.  Are those who don't really that significant a proportion?  Can they not just click on Pennsylvania?  I'm glad that  U.S. State is again unlinked but I still doubt the use in having it there at all. JIMp talk·cont 18:51, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have lived both in and outside of the US. From my experiences outside of the US, there are some people who just aren't that familiar with US states, and I think to provide context to the reader one should identify not just the state/province/territory, but also the country for any article. Since your user page says you speak fluent Strine, I once saw someone confuse something in South Wales with New South Wales (as there was no indication that it was in the UK). I would be OK with White Deer Hole Creek is a 20.5-mile (33.0 km) tributary of the West Branch Susquehanna River in Clinton, Lycoming and Union counties in Pennsylvania in the United States. too. Thanks, Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 19:23, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

text: I think that bit should stay, as it provides context to those who are unfamiliar with U.S. states. I'd prefer it were linked, as well. –Juliancolton | Talk 19:48, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

text: My recollection is that the article originally said something like "...in Pennsylvania in the United States." (back in 2006 when US was wikilinked too) and "US state of Pennsylvania" was a way of giving the country (US) with less characters. I need to think about which version I prefer - "Pennsylvania, USA" seems too choppy to me. Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 21:17, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I just checked and the original wording was "...in Pennsylvania in the United States." which was changed to the current version by the time it reached FAC. I am OK with the current version (US state) or with the original version (in the United States), but think "Pennsylvania, USA" sounds odd. Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 21:25, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Thanks for these three options. My preference among these three is #1. The "Pennsylvania, USA" part just sounds odd to me, and in American English. I also really don't have a problem with "in the US State of Pennsylvania" (option zero?) Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 02:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

text: 0. ... in Clinton, Lycoming and Union counties in the US State of Pennsylvania.
... well, it does have fewer ins.  If "Pennsylvania, USA" sounds odd in American English (I wouldn't know), it's numbers 0 or 1. JIMp talk·cont 07:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  U.S. state 

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080625134928/http://www.lycoming.edu/biologydept/petokas/pa%20gazzetter%20of%20streams.pdf to http://www.lycoming.edu/biologydept/petokas/pa%20gazzetter%20of%20streams.pdf
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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I have just modified 5 external links on White Deer Hole Creek. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090326050423/http://www.fish.state.pa.us/classa.pdf to http://www.fish.state.pa.us/classa.pdf
*Added  tag to ftp://ftp.dot.state.pa.us/public/pdf/BPR_PDF_FILES/Maps/Type_10_GHS_Historical_Scans/Union_1915.pdf
*Added  tag to ftp://ftp.dot.state.pa.us/public/pdf/BPR_PDF_FILES/Maps/Type_10_GHS_Historical_Scans/Lycoming_1916.pdf
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I'm looking at this older featured article as part of WP:URFA/2020, a drive to spur improvements in older featured articles.
* " In 2009 the name "South Creek" has disappeared, but there is still a "South Creek Road" on the right bank" - something seems to have gone wrong here - the source is a highway map from 2004, so it can't really support something from 2009
**Updated with 2022 version of the same PennDOT highway map. - Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 04:21, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: *I just saw this, thanks - I will see what I can do. I should have a bit more time with the holidays coming up. - Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 21:46, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: *  - Thanks for responding!  I can try to help a little bit but I'm going to be fairly busy for the forseeable future. Hog Farm  Talk 22:14, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

text: I'll try to look back in soon - life has been a bit hectic for me but is finally slowing down for the first time since May. Hog Farm  Talk 03:42, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks - I've also been quite busy, but should have more time to work on this starting next week. I've tried to reply to individual concerns above. - Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 20:00, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, hopefully this coming week I can get some more updates made. - Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 14:58, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hog Farm is quite busy during tax season, so I offered to try to see this one through.  I see you haven't been able to edit here since 20 November.  When you have time, can you backtrack through HF's list above, and indicate under each item what is done?  Once you're through that, pls ping me and I will give it a read-through.  All the bst, and I hope you are well, SandyGeorgia (Talk)  21:49, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: , good to hear from you. Sorry, I was waiting to hear from Hog Farm and then got busy IRL. I will indicate what is done and what can be fixed this coming weekend. I am doing well, thanks. Hope you are too, - Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 03:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  FA concerns