Talk:Wainui Falls

Wainui Falls 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. Review: January 30, 2018. (Reviewed version).

A fact from Wainui Falls appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 7 February 2018 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that, in Māori mythology, the severed tail of a taniwha which fell at the base of the Wainui Falls (pictured) is thought to be responsible for staining the rocks downstream reddish-brown with its blood? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2018/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Wainui Falls.

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This article is written in New Zealand English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, realise, analyse, centre, fiord) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

• [1] GB weekly some interesting stuff from old timers about how the track used to be and how they view the renovations. Follow up: expanded article with this source, not much more to add.
• [2] and [3] Two? photographic prints of the falls from the lat 1800s/early 1900s. I live in Wellington so I can track these down at the national Library and get a scanned copy.Follow up: found some scans... added to the article gallery
• [4] another collection in the Nat library that contains a photo of Wainui falls circa 1957 ( I will endeavor to get a copy if possible). Follow up: not free
• [5] Colour transparency: House at wainui falls circa 1973. Also in the Nat Library Follow up: not free
• [6] as early as 1916, the falls were recognised as a sightseeing destination that "attracted loads of sightseers and pleasure seekers". Follow up: added
• [7] Publication about a critically endangered fungus known only from the shells of Powelliphanta snails. The type organism of Harorepupu aotearoa (also known as 'Trichocomaceae gen. nov.') is from the Wainui falls track (from an empty Powelliphanta shell). Could be a good sentence or two as part of a 'Conservation' section. Follow up: not relevant enough for inclusion.
• [8] Speaking a Silence by Christine Hunt contains a story about a doctor visiting and saving the life of a woman and her newborn where she and her family had been living in a cave "up the Wainui Falls" Follow up: I got this out of the library, and I'll work in this short story if I can. Follow up#2: not appropriate for inclusion
• [9] "Walks to Waterfalls: 100 New Zealand Waterfalls" by Russell Kirkpatrick should contain Wainui Falls. Follow up: I found it in the Wellington central library; it does contain Wainui Falls but it is a short listing that does not give a height for the waterfall. About the only citable thing that he says is: "The plunge pool is popular with swimmers in the summer, who refresh themselves after thier 20-minute diversion." so we can cite it as being a good swimming spot (which I can also personally testify to).
• [10] "A Guide to New Zealand Waterfalls" by Johnny T. Cheng (the same guy who maintains world-of-waterfalls.com (which is used in the article). The book does not contain Wainui Falls based on the table of contents that can be viewed HERE.
• [11] a digital photo tour of the entire walk though 15 photos. Follow up: added as a ref and also as an external link. I have also contacted the creator of the site to ask him if he would be willing to publish his images on that site under a free licence so that they can be uploaded to commons. No response as of yet.

— Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 02:26, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Most sources cite the falls as being 20m high, but waterfalls.co.nz, an otherwise reliable source only says 7m. I also just found [12] this source, which also quotes 7m. This could be due to a discrepancy in the way that the height is measured, and this 7m may only represent the largest single freefall (the Wainui Falls have several distinct steps if you look carefully). I suspect that the real height, given this video with a guy at the bottom for scale, is certainly more than 7m to the top of the visible rapids, though the real height might be a bit less than 20. The 7m might be from the pool up to the first major ledge. Johnny T. Cheng talks about the uncretainty regarding the height (even says he has heard 30m!) but he eventually estimates about 20 based on the video before (which he took and uploaded to youtube). [13] — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 02:26, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Based on this plausible rationale, and the highest quality source being the 20m one (with critical analysis) I am going to add the 'height_longest' parameter to the infobox and set it to 7m cited to the sources that say 7m. working it out from the video, it does appear that the free-fall height from the big ledge to the rocks just above the pool is about 7m. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 03:18, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Removed due to OR concerns. Also, I notice that other horsetail waterfalls on waterfalls NZ list thier hight as the total height rather than the longest drop, so I was probably wrong in this assessment. Height cited at 20 m per superior source by Chang with critical analysis. I have also contacted waterfalls.co.nz to let them know of the seeming inaccuracy. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 20:28, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This review is

transcluded from Talk:Wainui Falls/GA1

. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk · contribs) 20:01, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My usual not-relevant-to-GA-review-so-feel-free-to-ignore comments: This is a fairly short article.

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   Is a waterfall "part of" a river rather than "in" a river?

   B. It complies with the

   list incorporation

   :

   I will address any "word" issues in the Original Research section.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with

   the layout style guideline

   :

   B. All

   reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines

   :

   "waterfalls.co.nz", "world-of-waterfalls", "1001 Best Things to See and Do in New Zealand", "nznationalparks", "seesouthisland", "Walks to Waterfalls: 100 New Zealand Waterfalls", "History of Māori of Nelson and Marlborough" - I trust that these are usually considered reliable? None of the claims in the article are particularly eyebrow raising, true.

   C. It contains no original research:

   Not sure I can find the location of the national park in source #1, but the claim is supported by source #2. Is Takaka 20 minutes (article, source does say 20 kilometres) or 30 minutes away (Source #2)? The footnote is not supported by the source as far as I can see. Having some difficulty finding the "Te waterfall has been a popular sightseeing destination since at least the early 20th century" sentence in Source #4, is it in Source #11? I am not seeing the pool description, snail description, or "the department of conservation maintains this" in source #8.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   Nothing on copyviotools, no undue similarity of text.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it
   neutral
   ?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing

   edit war

   or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are

   copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content

   :

   B. Images are

   suitable captions

   :

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

​Reply to review:

1. I would say yes, a waterfall is 'part of' a river. Sources such as national geographic define a waterfall as being just another element of the river. All of the water from the river passes through the waterfall, meaning that the waterfall is part of the watercourse. macmillian dictionary lists waterfall under 'parts of lakes, rivers and streams'.

3 B. world-of-waterfalls is written by a published expert in the field (his book is listed on the article's talk page, although Wainui Falls is not in his book-I checked). Waterfalls.co.nz states the "All reasonable measures have been taken to ensure the information is true and accurate." Seethesouthisland and nznationalparks might be the least reliable of those listed, as these are essentially self published accounts of individuals visiting the falls. I have removed them as sources for the height of the falls, and now neither source is being used to cite anything controversial. Seethesouthisland is not used alone, and only to support other references, and nznationalparks is just used in the caption for the Tyree photo to state that the smaller waterfall in that photo is not the falls (a plainly verifiable claim). Both sources could be removed without any impact on GA status, though I'd rather they remained as they are good resources for those interested in the topic. The rest of the sources are published books from reputable authors and publishers, 1001 Best Things to See and Do in New Zealand and History of Māori of Nelson and Marlborough are view-able online, and I personally checked out Walks to Waterfalls: 100 New Zealand Waterfalls at the Wellington public library to read its listing on Wainui Falls.

3 C. Note: because of fixes to 3B, the sources are now numbered differently, check the original numbering HERE. As far as the "in the Abel Tasman National Park", the best source for that is source 6 (previously source #8 - Department of conservation), so I have added it to both lines where this is mentioned. For the distance to Takaka, this was an error on my part, and I have now changed it to 20 km per the source. As for "popular since the early 20th century": Source 4 has a quote from a local: “The track has always been popular. Model Ts used to drive up the trail here.”. Source 11 says "The Babu Springs, Rawhiti Caves, Tarakoehe and its cement works, Pohara Beach, Wainui Falls and Handcock's falls, have all received record attention during the past week. Every steamer, every car, brings a fresh load of sightseers and pleasure seekers, and still they come."; the source is from 1916, so 'early 20th century'. Source 8 (now source 6) says "Keep a look out for the Powelliphanta snail, amongst the largest snails in the world.", I'll add an additional source for the 'pool' bit in the lede, as you are correct that the DOC source doesn't state this outright. The bit about who maintains it isn't mentioned outright by the doc website, but I thought it was self evident given that it is one of the DOC's 'short walks', which are all maintained by the DOC; GB weekly mentions this though, so I'll source it with that too.

Thanks very much for the review! — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 21:29, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

​ Most issues fixed, but a) the footnote still looks like original research to me, b) source #10 is probably easier to read if you quote a whole paragraph from it and c) the problem with the snail info is that the source only mentions that the snails exist, not that they should not be handled. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:38, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

​a) removed the footnote and the 7 m 'longest fall' stat. 20 m is still the most reliable total height given that Johnny T. Cheng (a published author on the subject) critically analyses the height in his listing on the falls. b) done. c) I couldn't find any particularly reliable source to back this second half of the sentence, so I have removed it. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 17:48, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, now it seems ready. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:46, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I got a response from waterfalls.co.nz, saying that they got the 7 m figure from a DOC sign or a topo map (can't remember which) and they also think it is only the longest drop without upstream and downstream cascades. They have updated their listing to 20 m to include the cascades. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 04:12, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]