Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Featured log/July 2013

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:Ian Rose 10:15, 31 July 2013 [1].

Nominator(s): Wehwalt (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because… I think it meets the criteria. Thaddeus Stevens was the guy with the limp in Lincoln who had a bad wig and went home to an African-American lover. That's the easy part. He did much more than that in his life, crusading for free public education in Pennsylvania and even against the Masonic Order. His battles against slavery and for equal rights made him so much more than a crank, but instead a fighter for freedom. My thanks to the several peer review and talk page commenters.Wehwalt (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I gave this article a lengthy peer review, from which I learned a great deal about this man and his role in American history. He is quite unknown in Britain (except, per Wehwalt above, as a bit player in the Lincoln film). My concerns were met, or at least discussed, to my satisfaction. I did have a slight issue over the length; this was to a large extent resolved by some judicious excisions made after my review. It's still a long article, but not outstandingly so, and there are articles for pop singers and cricketers that are longer. Support is subject to no issues arising from the sources review (which I will do myself), and images. Brianboulton (talk) 13:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. And equally, we know little of Wilberforce on these shores.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:04, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review

• Ref 37: I would give "Weder History Group" rather than the website name as the publisher of this source
• Ref 38: Link is to an abstract. Is the download free? If so, perhaps a note could indicate this, otherwise (subscription required)

• Ref 61: Worldcat gives ISBN 9780822939726
• Ref 68: I don't really see the point of this link to the book if the page is not available. The link would be better in the bibliography. Same point true for ref 77 and several others
• Ref 78: "The quote was first popularized by Scove, l a former Republican leader in New Jersey, who knew Stevens." There appears to be a misplaced comma in there.
• Refs 81 and 147 – why is it necessary to give the actual text, rather than just the citation, in these cases?
• Ref 112: This link does go to the page, but it looks awfully odd in the middle of the page range.
• Ref 158: ISBN 9780252065224
• Ref 160: I'm a bit puzzled by an ISBN for a 1937 book. This is presumably from a later edition?
• Ref 163: OCLC included, but not in other similar cases
• Ref 169: I cannot easily follow the format of this citation - can it be made clearer, e.g. by italicizing he book's title, removing extraneous stuff ("book and job printers")? I don't know what the information after "p. 177" refers to.
• Ref 195: Are you sure about Jacobin and "Aaron Bady" as reliable sources? It appears to be essentially a students' magazine.

For the limited purpose of commenting on a popular movie (it's not being sold as scholarly opinion, as the text says that it's about public interest in Stevens out of Lincoln, I think it's fine.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:31, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• In the bibliography, consistency is required in giving publisher locations.

Other than with these points, sources look fine. Brianboulton (talk) 17:42, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

SupportComments by Montanabw:

• I also participated in the peer review and did a bit of copyediting in the article early in the PR. It has improved since that time and has my general support, though with a couple of minor questions:
• Is there a missing word in this direct quotation? "He is radical throughout, except, I am told, he don't believe in hanging. He is [typo here?] leader"

No. That's what he wrote. I like that it amounts to an absolute.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:10, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• This two bits are quite awkwardly phrased: "Foner argued from the mid-1970s that Stevens's role was in staking out radical position, but events..." and "...Historian Hans Trefousse had in 1969 stated ..." Can you rephrase for better flow?

That's about all the jumped out at me at the moment. Montanabw^(talk) 18:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It appears my concerns have been addressed, other issues I had that were already raised by other editors have also been addressed. Looks good to go. Montanabw^(talk) 19:51, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

• Not sure "Stevens in a thoughtful pose" is the best caption

I'm open to better ideas. The difficulty is that most photographs of Stevens show him in similar poses. I felt this was the most distinctive.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:11, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Hang_Thaddeus.jpg is tagged as lacking source info. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please also check spelling of the cemetery - you've got two different versions. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that after some effort I've taken care of everything in the above three reviews that isn't commented on by me.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:44, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Now before I start reviewing this I have to make the (sure to be unpopular) disclosure that I have never seen Lincoln (*pause for effect).

Now, on with the show!

Addressed comments from Crisco 1492 moved to talk page

• Only issue I see today (though a bit of a glaring one). Support assuming it will be fixed. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:03, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the support. Regarding the passage you cite, "stopped too soon" is a shortened form of "that it stopped too soon". Eliminating the two words "that it" does not change the meaning, thus both scope and duration are being criticized. These are separate items, justifying the plural "things". Eliminating the two words "that it" does not convert duration into a subset of scope. If you like, I can put the words "that it" back in, but I think that would be needlessly clunky. Or perhaps there is a fault I do not see?--Wehwalt (talk) 11:36, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "the only things ... is" — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:07, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Changed to were.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:09, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you very much for the review and your support. Some do, some don't.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:58, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment for delegates There are, I think, three supports with an image review and a source review.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:01, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks by Quadell

• 25: The source supports a very small part of the claim, but there are other sources as well. No problems.
• 62: Quote is accurate and found in source
• 96: Statement fully supported by the source without plagiarism.
• 108: The fact is present in footnote 2 on that page. Is there a standard way of stating this in the reference? I'm not sure.

  In the law we would say p. 108 n.2.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:40, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• 113: Though Stevens did not use those words in his closing argument, I think they are an accurate summary of his position as given in the source.
• 181: Statement fully supported by the source without plagiarism.
• 193: Quote is accurate and found in source
• 195: Quote is accurate and found in source

All in all, so far as I can tell, the information in the article is fully and accurately supported by the sources. – Quadell ^(talk) 15:02, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:40, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Quadell[edit]

This article is very well written. The prose flows well, and the article seems reasonably complete. The sourcing seems complete, as described in the spotchecks above, though I have a few formatting concerns below. The images are all legitimately free, hosted on Commons, used appropriately, with full and accurate summaries. (I did fix the sourcing on the signature and improve the licensing template on File:TStevens-Johnson impeachment.jpg, but these were minor.)

However, I have some concerns that need to be addressed before I can support.

• Footnotes 16 and 17 seem to support an entire paragraph together, but it is clear from the text that the second half of the paragraph is only supported by Trefousse.
• Similarly, there are many cases where an entire paragraph is supported by multiple footnotes at the end. Without having access to the sources myself, it's hard to make out which source supports which claims in paragraphs such as these. (This seems most problematic in "Anti-masonry" paragraphs 2-4, "1860 election; secession crisis" paragraph 2, and "Impeaching the President" paragraphs 5 and 6.) If all statements are supported in both sources, that's fine, and if the material has been shuffled together in ways that would make individual citations unwieldy, then the current system is also fine. But if different parts of the paragraph can legitimately be cited to different sources in a simple way, that would be accurate and useful.

Generally, in my view, I think it would not be useful to unwind the multiple sources. That can come about a couple of different ways, either I'm borrowing facts from both sources (the most common case), and sometimes just a phrase might be from one source (usually the second one listed), or I'm adding new facts I found later to an existing source. There are reviewers who object, in the absence of a quote, to seeing the same footnote multiple times in a paragraph, they ask why didn't you put it all at the end? I don't think it's unreasonable to use multiple sources.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:40, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that simple by-paragraph footnoting is better than a cluttered footnoting, with a reference used many times in a single paragraph. Still, in the case of paragraph 2 of "anti-Masonry" (mentioned in the previous bullet point), it certainly seems like the Brodie cite only covers the first half of the paragraph. If that is the case in the other examples in this bullet point (and I'm not sure that it is), then a similar division would be useful. This bullet point isn't an objection, really, but just a request for the most specific sourcing that is practical. – Quadell ^(talk) 17:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've gotten out the sources and eliminated Brodie from that paragraph entirely. That being said, I'm not sure it is worth the effort. At worst, it points the reader to parallel material between biographies.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:43, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Graber is listed in the bibliography, but is not mentioned in the references. Should this be in "further reading" instead?

Fixed.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:19, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• There appears to be a typo in reference 25.

Fixed.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:19, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• It seems non-standard to me to have sections with semicolons in the title. Wouldn't "1860 election and secession crisis" and "political change and move to Lancaster" be more standard?

  I've used it before without objection see here for example. We are enjoined to brevity in section titles.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:40, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  I have to say, I don't like the style. But it does have precedent, and there's nothing against it in the MoS, so it's not an objection. – Quadell ^(talk) 17:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Lydia Hamilton Smith is referred to as a mulatto in the "political change; move to Lancaster" section, but is refered to as a quadroon in the "personal life" section. Which is correct?

I did not change the text that was there before I began work in the "Personal life" section first paragraph, and don't have that book. Mulatto seems to be the more common term for her, but I've avoided the issue in that paragraph. I wonder if these terms, once so important, mean much to the reader?--Wehwalt (talk) 17:19, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they're silly and subjective terms, and I'm glad they're out of common use. I just wanted to avoid conflicting descriptions, and your change neatly fixes the problem. – Quadell ^(talk) 17:23, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• As Nikkimaria points out, "Stevens in a thoughtful pose" is not a good caption. I would mention something he had frequent occasion to be thoughtful about toward the end of his life. Perhaps something like: "Stevens believed that changes made to the Fourteenth Amendment shattered his lifelong dream in equality for all Americans.", or "After the Civil War, Stevens took controversial positions regarding the Fourteenth Amendment, the pace of Reconstruction, and the impeachment of President Johnson.", or something more appropriate.
• Similarly, the caption "Lydia Hamilton Smith" could be improved (in my opinion) to something more descriptive, such as "Historians are uncertain whether Stevens' relationship with Lydia Hamilton Smith was romantic in nature".

I'm of the view that captions should be descriptive of what we are seeing. If the existing caption is unsatisfactory, something like "Stevens in the 1860s" (or if I can hunt down a more specific date might be good.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:40, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, for the first image, the only information given by the Library of Congress is either visually obvious ("half length portrait, seated, facing left; hand under chin") or else clearly incorrect (c. 1898, which would be 30 years post-mortem). I think it's valid for a caption to describe the context instead of just the image content, especially for the Lydia Hamilton Smith photo, but I guess that's not required. If you don't think that's appropriate then there probably isn't a way to improve those two captions. – Quadell ^(talk) 17:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's just that I don't do it that way, thus those image caption would appear stylistically odd to the reader.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:21, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I hope these remaining issues are addressed, since this is a very informative article about an important person. – Quadell ^(talk) 15:02, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've done the issues which I agreed with, and please note my comments above. Thank you for the excellent work.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:19, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. All of my concerns have either been fixed, or have been shown to be acceptable stylistic choices. The article is excellent, and merits featured status. – Quadell ^(talk) 17:55, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that, and for your review, and I will be sensible of your referencing concerns in future.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:03, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• Great writing.
• "said to have been a scarring experience for him": Since you don't say that it _was_ a scarring experince for him, I take it you aren't sure ... but there's no information to tell me who said this, or why you would doubt it, so I'm not in a position to know what this means.
• I got down to Thaddeus Stevens#Abolitionist and prewar congressman, and probably don't need to go any farther since you've got your prose support. Well done. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 03:07, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Basically, the idea is that the rejection of Stevens for Phi Beta wasn't told until after he was already well-known as an anti-Mason and egalitarian, and his biographers take it with different amounts of salt, though Brodie seems to take it straight.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:09, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 13:40, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:Ian Rose 10:15, 31 July 2013 [2].

Nominator(s): Parsecboy (talk) 18:53, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This was the first German dreadnought battleship, and perhaps somewhat curiously, the second to last to grace the illustrious FAC pages. I wrote this article back in 2009, when it passed both GA and A-class reviews. Hopefully not too much dust has gathered on the article in the 3+ years since, but I look forward to working with reviewers to ensure this article is an example of Wikipedia's best work. Thanks in advance to all who take the time to review the article. Parsecboy (talk) 18:53, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per new standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 21:00, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image check - all OK (US and UK government, German Federal Archive, own work). Sources and authors provided. 1 nitpick:

• File:SMS_Nassau_illustration.jpg - would be good to add some bibliographic info for the source book. Author is Robert Gardiner? ISBN? Year and publisher? Makes it easier to check the source for other editors. GermanJoe (talk) 12:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's this book - added the details to the image description. Parsecboy (talk) 16:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

• Some of the details in the infobox (for example, complement) are unsourced
• Quotes of 40+ words should be blockquoted
• Location for Hough? Nikkimaria (talk) 20:31, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should all be fixed, thanks Nikki. Parsecboy (talk) 14:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments based on Hildebrand, Röhr and Steinmetz, volume 6

• christened by Princess Hilda of Nassau under watchfull eyes of the Kaiser and Prince Henry of the Netherlands (1820–1879), page 135. MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:25, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Hermann Bauer was one of the commanders (November 1918 to December 1918), page 133 MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:29, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Both added in, thanks MB. Parsecboy (talk) 11:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wait, something must be wrong? I gave you a wrong link. HRS says Heinrich der Niederlande (I just checked again) but this Heinrich here was dead already. MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:12, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Pretty sure Prince Henry was Queen Wilhelmina's husband so I changed the link; I'm not sure if he's really a member of the House of Orange-Nassau though. Kirk (talk) 20:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, he would be a member of the House of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. His wife, Queen Wilhelmina, was a member of Orange-Nassau, however. How does this look? Parsecboy (talk) 20:21, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • Sorry for the confusion. I am happy to support MisterBee1966 (talk) 10:27, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• Infobox:
  • Fixed the namesake citation.
    • Thanks.
  • The armor section was uncited. I also couldn't tell which one of those was supposed to be the deck armor so maybe you can add it?
    • Also, I reviewed Nassau-class battleship and it has the same infobox but different details in the prose, so both need some work. Kirk (talk) 14:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Should be straightened out now.
  • The main and secondary battery need links. Kirk (talk) 20:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I fixed the links to match Oldenburg. Kirk (talk) 14:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • That was the wrong link for the 28cm gun - should have been the 45-caliber not the 50-caliber version. Thanks, as always, for reviewing the article and all your work, Kirk. Parsecboy (talk) 14:36, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Whoops - I thought I caught that yesterday.
• The other articles in this series cite the use of older triple reciprocating engines instead of turbines based either on the cost of importing them from Britain or turbine engines were not being built in Germany because the license cost was too high. The quote "use of turbines in heavy warships does not recommend itself." probably needs explanation why Tirpiz and the construction department didn't recommend them; I think they meant because the cost was too high for the benefit. Note: Staff p.23 asserts it was because they weren't being built in Germany. Kirk (talk) 15:33, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Added in. Parsecboy (talk) 15:43, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - the penultimate SMS Dreadnaught FAC and I look forward to reviewing Posen! Kirk (talk) 14:25, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - An excellent article that covers its subject concisely. The references are precise and consistent. I only wish you hadn't used so many commas throughout. ceranthor 22:09, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments

• Coal or oil-fired?
• Not required, but I suggest adding the |0 to all the metric to English conversions.
• Link bridge--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:32, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should all be taken care of. Thanks Sturm. Parsecboy (talk) 00:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comment -- can you just check your dup links pls Nate? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:02, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Should all be fixed, thanks for reminding me, Ian. Parsecboy (talk) 13:50, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 13:59, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:Ian Rose 10:15, 31 July 2013 [3].

Nominator(s): Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:36, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I think it is the equal of the other banksia Featured Articles. Sasata gave it a thorough going-over for GA status. All input appreciated. have at it. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:36, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image check - all OK (PD-old, own work). Sources and authors provided.

• File:Banksia_speciosa_(Bauer).jpg - tweaked tags and summary (no action required). GermanJoe (talk) 10:59, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

• FN5: series generally isn't italicized

done Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:03, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• FN7: range should use endash. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:14, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gosh, how'd I miss that....rejigged now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:03, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Very quick comment: Really Cas? Five paragraphs in a row starting with "In (year)"? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:50, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gosh, how'd I miss that....rejigged now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:03, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This is a WikiCup nomination. The following nominators are WikiCup participants: Casliber. To the nominator: if you do not intend to submit this article at the WikiCup, feel free to remove this notice. UcuchaBot (talk) 00:01, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Jim just a few quibbles before I support Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• As they age they develop up to 20 follicles... It

fixed Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:22, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• rusty-coloured— rust-coloured

hmmm, the latter makes it sound to me too much like a plant pathogen....maybe a UK/Aus thing? will double check on that one..... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:22, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• one or two year-old stems— one- or two-year-old I think (see later in your text)

fixed Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:22, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• oval shaped = oval

fixed Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:22, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• each follicle is 3.5–5 cm... They

fixed Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:22, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Cacciola ref has its title in a different style to the journal refs

I think that is because it has a taxon in italics to start the title...? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:25, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The point I was making with the ref was that it didn't have the same heavy capitalisation as the others. Anyway, I'll leave that with you, changed to support above Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:12, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aaah, I missed that. fixed now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:26, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

SupportPumpkinSky talk 02:12, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Looks good as usual. Some small comments from a first read below. Choess (talk) 13:29, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "the seed" in the lead feels a bit odd to me (using the definite article without having said which seed is being referred to. Maybe "its seed"?

I see it as a group noun - its seed sounds weird to me, so maybe just "seeds" Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Use of "lined" in "Description". The word makes me think of the interior of a cavity, something three-dimensional. Could we use "edged"? "bordered"? "rimmed"?

I think "lines" but no matter - "bordered" is fine too. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• In "Description", could we put a paragraph break between the material on the leaves (ends with "hair when mature") and that on the flowers, or would that make the initial paragraph too short? It seems odd to me to have that transition in the middle of a paragraph.

para split Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Does "southern sandplains" refer to a well-defined geographical area? If not, perhaps sandplain should be linked.

I've linked sandplain - will double check on the specificity of this. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:36, 13 July 2013 (UTC) It lies partly within Esperance Plains, but not all of that is sandplain. The term is uncapitalised more often than not on google search, and we don't have a target article so I think sandplain is the easiest link really. Esperance Plains is linked elsewhere. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:48, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "...the other is dark brown, on this side the body..." is awkward. Use a semicolon or a period after "dark brown".

done Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:32, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• In "Taxonomy", the common names "handsome banksia" and "ricrac banksia" are mentioned but do not appear in bold in the lead. Should they be added there, and in this section, should they be set off from the running text in quotes?

those names are seldom used, hence I didn't feel they merited mentioning in the lead - "showy banksia" is pretty universal these days. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• In Ecology, "opened by fire" seems preferable to "opened with fire".

done Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "progressively store larger numbers" should be "store progressively larger numbers" (i.e., it's the largeness of the numbers that's progressive, rather than the storage)

done Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Though this suggested it might outcompete its conspecifics": I'd say "Though these results suggested B. speciosa might outcompete its conspecifics". I find decoding the pronouns just a little disorienting.

done Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:31, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good looking at it initially, I'll give it a read this evening.Tibetan Prayer ^᧾ 10:10, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by the Dr.

Lead -

• I'd place "Banksia speciosa occurs on the south coast of Western Australia between Hopetoun (33°57′ S) and the Great Australian Bight (approximately 33° S 130° E), growing on white or grey sand in shrubland. " in the second sentence before the description to immediately picture where it grows.

switched up. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:03, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "nectar- and insect-feeding birds" Not sure why there is a hyphen after nectar and then a space.

as the hyphen presupposes a "feeding" - it's the way I have always thought about it.....? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:03, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• What is a "sunny aspect"? Soils which receive much sunlight you mean? I vaguely remember the term in A level geography or biology like a slope which faces the sun or something but it was a long time ago! Could you clarify for the scientifically ignorant?

aaah, I forget to take off my gardening hat - in essence "sunny location" - changed Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:48, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Description -

• "The seed is 3.7–4.5 cm (1.5–1.8 in) long and fairly flattened, and is composed of the seed body proper, measuring 1–1.4 cm (0.4–0.6 in) long and 0.9–1.2 cm (0.4–0.5 in) wide, and a papery wing." can you cite this given that it has a number of figures?

Good point - what I prefer to do is this so as I don't clutter the prose up with more inlines than is needed, and anyone editing can see how much text is covered by the cite. That ok? I usually do this more often but get lazy sometimes..... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:56, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• What is an "upright habit". Prone to growing straight and erect?

yup. The first instance is linked to Habit (biology)...which could do with some improvement certainly.... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:56, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Taxonomy -

• "The first botanical collection of this species may well have been Claude Riche, naturalist to Bruni d'Entrecasteaux's 1791 expedition in search of the lost ships of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse." Not too keen on the "may well have been" and no citation, looks a little OR. I know the third sentence is sourced, but can you also source the first?

Like above, I have added a commented out note detailing the coverage of the source. The way it is written is (I think) engaging. My first attempt at getting rid of the fluffy verbage "may well have been" makes it sound a bit wooden - I will sleep on this. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:41, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm sure you have a standard layout or project guideline for articles like this but as a reader naturally I'd want to know about distribution, cultivation, ecology after description and Taxonomy last. I suppose you wouldn't accept moving down the Taxonomy to the bottom? It seems to look more natural to me but I'm not the expert on these sorts of articles like you!

the order of sections has been debated on multiple occasions. In all cases, Taxonomy and/or naming and/or systematics and Description are the first two, though their order may change depending on local consensus - these two define the subject - done by diagnosis and one by its attributes, and hence these are why they are up top. i.e. you have to know what a thing is before discussing its range, ecology etc.... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:36, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links

• Can you put the wikisource links inline on the left? I think the three boxes bloats it at the end.

have you seen any special formatting for them or examples? I'd prefer them not being just external links but something internal/official looking. Even if we could make the boxes align horizontally....? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:34, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article looks very good, I think it would look even better with a slight shuffling of the paragraphs. Tibetan Prayer ^᧾ 21:00, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

have you seen any special formatting for them or examples? I'd prefer them not being just external links but something internal/official looking. Even if we could make the boxes align horizontally....? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:34, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Thanks for addressing my points. Like Jim I think this is sound enough on such a subject to be worthy of an FA.Tibetan Prayer ^᧾ 17:03, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

thx for the vote of confidence :) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:34, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Hamiltonstone

• "It does not have a lignotuber." Well thanks, I won't go looking then. Seriously, it seems strange to be told of something the plant does not have. Is there a reason, and if so, might that be worth including? Such as "Unlike most Banksia species, it does not have a lignotuber."

Looks excellent otherwise. hamiltonstone (talk) 12:19, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

good point - context added Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:51, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comment -- Cas, did you run the duplink checker? Definitely a couple not needed... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:21, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

got 'em now....was busy and forgot I think.... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:46, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 12:50, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:Ian Rose 10:15, 31 July 2013 [4].

Nominator(s): Neelix (talk) 12:20, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe that it meets the criteria. This article has received a copyedit from a member of the Guild of Copyeditors and has also passed a good article nomination. Neelix (talk) 12:20, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, as GA Reviewer. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with the ability of Neelix (talk · contribs) to write the article in a neutral tone that amply satisfies NPOV, particularly with regard to the article's subject matter. Good luck, — Cirt (talk) 00:26, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sources and images - spotchecks not done

• If you include a quotation in a caption, you should source it immediately (as you would do in a lead); however, as the Ulysses caption is quite long you might consider cutting everything after the semi-colon
• File:Ulysses_and_the_Sirens_by_H.J._Draper.jpg: why would this be PD in the US? Do we know when/where it was first published? Also, possible to include an alternate source?
• As The Pine Log is a student newspaper, what makes its writer's view significant and reliable?
• Page ranges should use endashes. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:16, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have cut everything after the semicolon in the Ulysses caption, removed the student newspaper source, and fixed the dashes. Herbert James Draper, the painter of Ulysses and the Sirens, was from England and died in 1920. The Victorian Web states that Draper painted the piece circa 1909. Is that enough information do demonstrate the copyright status of the image in the United States? Neelix (talk) 15:13, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's fine, thanks - pre-1923 is PD in the US, and with that DOD there'd be no restored copyright to complicate things. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:29, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Great. Do you have any further concerns I might address? Neelix (talk) 20:10, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dr. Blofeld[edit]

• Lead. In the lead you say "The book tells the story of how the couple first met and got married." which immediately confuses me. I think you should clarify that the couple are the authors of the book and it is about them.
• The critical reception part in the lead strikes me as odd. I'd expect to see mention of professional critic reviews, mentioning that Filipina actresses approved of the book strikes me as a bit odd. For the lead i'd expect "critically well-received" or whatever and some mention of professional acclaim aside from peers.

• Background. "When God Writes Your Love Story is a 1999 book by Eric and Leslie Ludy.[1] It is the third book that they wrote together." You don't need to write it as if it's the beginning of the article again. I'd write it as "When God Writes Your Love Story" is the third book written by Eric and Leslie Ludy, published in 1999.
• "The book was endorsed by Leslie and Les Parrott, authors of Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts; Beverly LaHaye of Concerned Women for America and Joe White, President of Kanakuk Kamps." Strikes me as a bit premature to say this, I'd mention that nearer the bottom of the section.

• Critical response. This long section is really too diverse to constitute one full section and as a result it affects the structure and flow of it. It needs to be made more coherent and split it into several sub section a] Professional critic response b] Response of other authors c] Response of others like the actresses.

I'd expect a section of the article to discuss the main themes in more detail. I suppose the plot does partly cover this and there might be a lack of material to explore it in more detail but that's my initial feeling on it.

• References. Please place all books in the biblography section and place the book page notes in the above for consistency with the other two books.

♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 09:52, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have reworded the lead to clarify that the book is about the authors, rewrote the "critical response" portion of the lead to focus on reviews by professional critics, reworded the first sentence of the "Background" section for flow, moved the endorsements towards the end of that section, split the "Critical response" section into subsections, and moved all of the books to the bibliography. I would be glad for the article to have a "Themes" section, although the amount of discussion of themes that already exists in the "Background" section is all that I was able to extract from the sources I have been able to find. I could write a "Themes" section using the book itself as a source, although that might go beyond what a primary source ought to be used for. Neelix (talk) 17:52, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I was thinking of a mixture of using the book and the perspectives of scholars, but if the scholarly work doesn't exist then don't worry.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 06:18, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe it does. Do you have any further concerns I might address? Neelix (talk) 20:10, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments If there's one thing I'm truly clueless about it's religion-based self-help books (I reckon that I have a better understanding of quantum physics or Mongolian history...). With that disclaimer in mind, I have the following comments on this nomination:

• "In the book, the authors challenge singles" - "challenge" is something of a loaded word (a "challenge" is a good thing in this kind of context) - how about something like "advise"?
• The "Background" section seems more like a summary, which is really the role of the lead. Such a section should discuss how the book came about and the context in which it was published.
• "It became a bestseller on the Christian book market." - how many sales are we talking about here?
• After reading the 'Contents' section I'm not sure that I understand the key recommendations the authors are putting forward - do they think that people should simply wait until they bump into their sole mate? How are they supposed to recognise them?
• Who are Mark Matlock, Jason Evert and Christine Gardner? I presume that they're also Christian self-help book writers?
• "Gardner argues that the result of this woman's failure to follow the Ludys' advice and leave God to write her love story "was a fractured fairy tale, one without a happy ending."" - does a book published by a prestigious academic press which, according to its Wikipedia article and Amazon page, provides a critical analysis of this genre really blame the woman for failing to follow the Lundys' advice?
• "two college professors" - at the risk of seeming a snob, do we know what college they teach at?
• "While referencing When God Writes Your Love Story specifically on several occasions, the Petersons acknowledge that the Ludys' book is one of many books with this premise and write that "it is the entire genre that is problematic." - I found this interesting, and it would be good if the article could ground the book in the genre.
• "In Eyes Wide Open: Avoiding the Heartbreak of Emotional Promiscuity, Brienne Murk identifies "Faithfully" as one of her favourite songs." - who is Brienne Murk?
• Likewise, who are Christine A. Colón and Bonnie E. Field?
• "In 2005, Louisiana Tech University journalism major Amber Miles wrote an article published by The Times " - why are Ms Miles views worth recounting? Also, The Times without any further description is normally used in reference to the famous British newspaper.
• What is the "Clear Choices Pregnancy Resources Center", and why are its director's views worth including?
• Most of the critical responses to the book seem somewhat lightweight (reviews in provincial newspapers and specialist websites). I was expecting to see a critic give the book both barrels given that it's offering some seriously bad advice (IMO). I imagine that feminist writers would have some interesting things to see about the notion that "single women should practice serving their fathers and brothers" (even with the proviso that blokes should do the same), and the material about God offering "new beginnings to people who have been unchaste or who have been sexually abused" seems controversial - do they authors really group the "unchaste" together with victims of sexual abuse?
• To clarify the above point, my underlying concern is that most of the responses to the book noted in the article are from people who appear to share the authors' viewpoint and are praising the work as it agrees with their views. This isn't optimum for helping our readers to understand the book as it doesn't provide a serious critical analysis. Nick-D (talk) 04:30, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have switched "challenge" to "advise", stated the number of copies sold, clarified how the Ludys suggest that people should recognize their soulmates, added sources to explain the identities of the people who comment on the book, removed the "Times" source, and removed the statement from Higdon. I do not believe that sources exist that explain the things you suggest should be added to the "Background" section. What would you recommend I do to make this section more what it ought to be? I believe that my reading of Gardner's statement is accurate, but I would be grateful for a second set of eyes on that source to make sure that I have correctly interpreted what Gardner suggests; she certainly doesn't take on a condemnatory tone towards the girl in question. This source states that the Petersons have taught at Eastern University and North Park University, but I don't know which is the one where they taught the course in question; should I mention both in the article? How would you recommend that I further ground the article in its genre? I have already added the appropriate categories to the article and written that the book has been associated with other books in the genre such as Joshua Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Boy Meets Girl. I know nothing of Clear Choices Pregnancy Resources Center other than what is stated in the corresponding source, which isn't much; I assume that it is a crisis pregnancy center. A Google search doesn't turn up much either. I do not believe that the combatative sources you are looking for exist. I have not omitted any sources I have been able to find; whether positive or negative, I have used all the reviews I have come across. I have searched for sources using Google Books and Google News in addition to academic journal databases. I do not know of any more reviews of the book, nor do I know where I might find additional reviews. It is likely that almost all of the reviewers have a similar perspective to the book's authors because any reviewers who did not share a similar perspective would not consider the book worth reviewing. How would you recommend that I address this issue? Neelix (talk) 15:38, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to the Gardner book, it turns out that I have online access to it through my university. I've checked page 114, and don't think that it says anything like "Gardner argues that the result of this woman's failure to follow the Ludys' advice and leave God to write her love story" at all - my reading of the passage is that Gardner believes that this book provided simplistic advice and left the woman with unrealistic or confused expectations of how relationships actually work (the woman is described as seeing relationships in the context of the book's advice, but then gets confused and possibly upset when she tries to put it into practice). She's certainly not endorsing the book's guidance as this text in the article implies. Nick-D (talk) 00:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gardner doesn't write that the Ludys' book provided simplistic or unrealistic advice, but I agree with you that she does not endorse the book either. I have removed Gardner from the list of American authors who positively received the book and I have reworded the statement about Gardner's reception of the book to avoid bias. Do you believe that the article now more accurately represents Gardner's reception of the Ludys' book? Neelix (talk) 18:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that works. Unfortunately she doesn't specifically discuss this book in detail. Nick-D (talk) 11:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is unfortunate. Have I addressed your other concerns? Neelix (talk) 14:33, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not really I'm afraid: the level of background and serious critical analysis is much less than I'd expect to see in a FA on a big-selling book. I appreciate that sources may not exist on these topics, but I can't support I'm afraid. Nick-D (talk) 07:45, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean that the subject of this article inherently prevents the article from being featured? I am willing to improve the article in whatever way consensus deems best. Neelix (talk) 16:05, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not so much the subject as (IMO only) the lack of sources providing the coverage needed to raise the article to FA standard I'm afraid. I note that other editors have differing views, and I'm a fence sitter here in recognition of the lack of sources. Nick-D (talk) 10:40, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Comments from Jim This sounds like a book I'd go a long way to avoid! Nevertheless, that shouldn't detract from the high quality of this article. A few concerns follow:

• It's in a bit of a geographical vacuum. You would assume that a book like this is likely to be American, but that's only confirmed, indirectly, in the third paragraph. Similarly, there is no indication of the nationalities of the Petersons, Colon or Field. Since there is a review from the Philippines, we need some indication of who these people are (name of the anonymous college for the Petersons would help)
• Why do the views of Colon and Field matter? Their only qualification seems to be that they are single women in their thirties, hardly makes them of literary or religious significance.
• Was it only published in the US? If not, where else?
• The sales figure seems to be sourced to the authors, hardly a reliable source. Surely there must be some independent verification of book sales in the US as there is here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimfbleak (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your willingness to review this article despite your distaste for its subject. I have made it clearer in the text of the article that the book is American, indicated the nationalities of the other authors, added the qualifications of Colon and Field, and added information about the publications in other countries. The sales figure is sourced to the cover of the 10th anniversary edition of the book; I would have expected that this information would therefore be something written by the publisher rather than the authors themselves. I have spoken with a resource librarian at my local library and he believes that the only source for the sales figure is likely to be the publisher. I do not know of another way to verify the book sales, but I would be glad to pursue any avenue of research that you might suggest. Neelix (talk) 16:27, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy with the responses above, I should have realised that it would be the publisher's data (although I'm still surprised there is no industry sales figures collation). Just two further things before I support Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:54, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Is the sales figure for the US only, all English language or all languages?
• I'd rather assumed that Clear Choices Pregnancy Resources Center was something like an NHS medical facility here, but looking at the web info it's clear that it's a pro-Christian, anti-abortion organisation. This may be obvious to an American, but perhaps a couple of words of clarification to help non-US readers?

I have done a bit more searching and have added a source to the article that clarifies the nature of Clear Choices Pregnancy Resources Center. Both the book cover and the online press releases I have found indicate the sales figure for the book without any stipulations of country or language, which should indicate that the figure covers all forms of the book. Neelix (talk) 13:45, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The sales thing isn't a big deal, jsut looking for clarification if available. The edits clarify the agenda of the centre, no further queries, changed to support above Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:38, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Sadads[edit]

• Support after changes made since feedback. Good Job Neelix! Sadads (talk) 19:47, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, the article is well researched and organized, however, there are multiple points where I am noticing clunky prose. I will leave it below as I work through the article:

• "It became a bestseller on the Christian book market, leading to it being republished in 2004 and then being revised and expanded in 2009." Perhaps focus on removing multiple extra helping verbs, which in this case creates a much more wordy for example "After becoming a bestseller on the Christian book market, the book was republished in 2004 and then revised and expanded in 2009."
• "The Ludys argue that God should be in charge of one's love life and that pursuing a relationship with God is more important than pursuing a relationship with another human being." This is a wordy chain of ideas, how might it be a bit more concise?
• "Leslie writes that God offers new beginnings to people who have been unchaste or who have been sexually abused." How about "Leslie writes that God offers new beginnings to formerly unchaste or sexually abused individuals." Lot less wordy parallel ideas.

I have implemented the rewording suggestions you have made. I would appreciate any further prose (or other) recommendations you are willing to provide. Neelix (talk) 15:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am glad they are helpful. Sorry I didn't do the whole article in one fell swoop. I am making a few more small prose changes and have some more questions. Sadads (talk) 16:08, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Another frequently mentioned concept in the book is "the beautiful side of love", which the Ludys describe as the positive aspects of romance." What do they mean by this concept? How could you communicate the difference between this "beautiful side" and presumably a "less beautiful side" (unfortunately this kind of binary language is problematic, but if they use it you can't assume that it has uniform meanings amongst our readers).
• There needs to be a citations for the pages in which the quotes are drawn from, otherwise people can't do verifiability or reuse that particular quoted saying in their own research well.
• Also, in the plot, could we outline the chapters more? Right now, I have a sense of the larger argument and some of the tools they use to map that arguement (ironically a lot of polytheistic greek myths...), but I don't have a good sense of how they break out those ideas (what order, or sequence of elements). Do different chapters have different emphasis? Are they a bunch of repetitive elements that don't change much, thus they summary can map all of them at once?
• In the only lead, the only mention of negative reception is "Rick Holland of Crosswalk.com criticized the Ludys for basing too much of their description of dating on anecdotes and not enough on the Bible." However, many of the different reviewers had differences of opinion with the Ludy's, how might you better summarize that disagreement in the lead? Why is Holland so prominent?
• Many of the paragraphs in the Critical Response section begin very abruptly, so the reader has to wait a couple sentences before they can understand the entire purpose or function of the sentence. How might you use topic sentences that summarize the main focus of the paragraph to orient the reader for the various types of information they will receive in the rest of the sentence?

I have elaborated on the concept of "the beautiful side of love", added page references for the quotations, added section summaries to the "Contents" section, added more negative reception to the lead, and added introductory summary sentences to several paragraphs in the "Critical response" section. I would be grateful if you would let me know if I have sufficiently improved the clarity and flow of the article. Neelix (talk) 17:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, everything looks much better in the reception section (easier to follow and reads less like a list). Put my support above, Sadads (talk) 19:47, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by American Eagle[edit]

• I honestly don't understand why File:Anne Curtis (2009).jpg is used on the page. This article is nearly FA-quality. Why is there a picture of unrelated Filipino actress who briefly reviewed the book? Her mention in the article is only a blurb. The image literally copies the text from the body, almost in its entirety. I cannot see why a full scale image of this indie actress deserves a place on a featured article of When God Writes Your Love Story. This is an encyclopedia, not a promotional site for Anne Curtis. American Eagle (talk) 19:17, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The image does not appear promotional to me. There are plenty of images on featured articles that have a similar connection to the subject of their articles. Consider, for example, the image of John Paul Stevens on the Freedom for the Thought That We Hate featured article; he is pictured because he reviewed the book. Similarly, Neil Gaiman is pictured on the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell featured article because he promoted the book. I think the image is benefitial and should remain, but I am willing to remove it if there is consensus to do so. Neelix (talk) 17:27, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The difference is that John Paul Stevens is a .S. Supreme Court Justice (on an article regarding civil rights and freedom of speech), and Neil Gaiman has "has promoted Clarke's work since the beginning of her career". What connection does Anne Curtis have with the Ludys? Has she met them? Is she an expert on marital relations? From what I gather, she's a known actress in the Filipino-Australian communities, but without any connection to this book. I definitely think this is undue weight. As you said, Neelix, I would like to see where consensus is established. American Eagle (talk) 23:22, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Highlighting such a minor endorsement of the book does strike me as being WP:UNDUE: Ms Curtis isn't authority on this kind of book or topic, and her link to the book is pretty minor. Nick-D (talk) 07:45, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the image of Anne Curtis according to the recommendations of American Eagle and Nick-D above. Neelix (talk) 16:03, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support from Cliftonian. I think this meets the FA standards and so am upgrading to support. I hope you have a great trip Neelix! —Cliftonian (talk) 04:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

("we are never satisfied ... but when we pour")

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 12:13, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 10:02, 30 July 2013 (UTC) [5].[reply]

Social history of viruses[edit]

Nominator(s): Graham Colm (talk) 11:27, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have been working on this article for over two years. I have moved quite a bit of material to Viral evolution and History of virology because my original version was too broad in scope. When not busy with other things here, my aim is to improve our coverage of viruses and virology. Viruses have had, and continue to have, a significant impact on human history; mainly as a cause of diseases but also because of the important role they play in ecology and evolution. I have made a conscious effort to make the content accessible to the lay reader – so please do not be put off by the subject! I have benefited from an extensive GA review, peer review and post-peer review, and my warmest thanks to those who contributed so much of their valuable time. Graham Colm (talk) 11:27, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose; I am not competent to judge the content of the article, but I have peer-reviewed it twice, specifically to ensure that the prose was accessible to a non-specialist readership. I am satisfied that it is; as a non-specialist myself I have to say I found the article thoroughly informative and absorbing, an excellent means of acquiring an understanding, from a layperson's perspective, of this most important topic. I am sure there are further minor quibbles to be made around the prose, but at this point I will limit myself to two:

• Lead, third sentence: I would rather see "Having been hunter-gatherers..." than "Previously hunter-gatherers..."
• Last sentence of lead: perhaps stick to one tense, thus: "They drive evolution by transferring genes across species, play important roles in ecosystems, and are essential to life." Brianboulton (talk) 19:41, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To have succeeded in conveying the importance of these – to all intents and purposes – invisible little things, is worth more than the star. I have incorporated your suggestions and thank you once again for your reviews and comments, which have been indispensable. Graham Colm (talk) 21:05, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review. Nitpicks for now, full review later. Sasata (talk) 07:11, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• check for consistency with display of page range; e.g. 50–9 v. 153–154
• some journal names are abbreviated, some aren't; some of the abbreviated titles use fullstops, some don't
• subtitle after colon capitalized (#10) or not (#21)?
• book titles are not consistently title or sentence case (same with journal article titles, for that matter – see ref#85)
• page number for ref#23?
• Gotffried 1977 is missing the issue #
• comma missing ref #30
• ref#43 "pp. xv" ->"p. xv"?
• check for consistency author name display, e.g. "Thomas Penn" v. "Elmer, P" v. "Reiter P" v. "Collier, LH (Leslie Harold)"
• publisher locations aren't given consistently
• check formatting of refs#153, 155
• I noticed there's sometimes a space before colons (even when not present in the source title)

I can't find an example. Graham Colm (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• refs#221, 248–accessdate not required
• double periods in ref#239

I can't see them. Graham Colm (talk) 20:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• PLOS Biology or PLos Biology?

Thanks for the meticulous check. I think I have fixed these apart from where I have indicated. (It might be my eyesight mind). Graham Colm (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• sorry to be a pain, but I still see inconsistencies (please check throughout, these are examples only):
• page ranges: "50–59" v "12–9"
• author format: "Topley, W. W. C.; Wilson, GS;" v. "Zuckerman, AJ; Howard, CR" v. "Maccallum FO." v. "Collier, LH (Leslie Harold)"
• I'm not sure what's been done since I last looked (removed the citation templates perhaps?), but now the year of publication for journal articles (without parentheses, after the title) is in a different format than for books (in parentheses, after the authors)
• check for stray spaces after punctuation (e.g. "Chichester ; New York", "Biologicals : Journal of the ..."
• some journal names are still abbreviated (Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., B, Biol. Sci..; Virol. J..) – also note that this is where some double periods are arising (cite journal automatically adds a fullstop after the journal title)
• see ref #175: journal title is not italicized
• "p. 19–20" ->pp.
• still inconsistent capitalization following the colon in article subtitles (e.g. "Avian influenza: our current understanding" v. "Citrus tristeza virus: A pathogen that changed"
• ref #79, "Brunton, 39–45" needs "p."
• ref #232, as a chapter from a book, should include the book editors, publisher, and publisher location. "Advances in Virus research" should only be given once (use the "series" parameter, if you're using the cite journal template)
• Latin binomial needs italicization in ref#236

Still checking..... Graham Colm (talk) 08:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think I have fixed these issues. Graham Colm (talk) 10:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Are you using full page ranges (e.g. 40–41) or not (e.g. 21–5)?

Fixed. Sorry I missed this one. Graham Colm (talk) 18:48, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have now read through the text thoroughly, and offer my full review below. I found the article very well written and highly accessible, although I think it could make better use of links. Sasata (talk) 08:55, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• might any of these links be useful in the lead: infection, viruses of plants, Spanish Conquests, indigenous peoples, pandemic of 1918–19, polio vaccine, pathogenic
• link Herpes virus
• why is "million years ago" linked (is this not self-explanatory?)
• "morbilli" should be italicized, not encased in quotes; also check ""lyssa" or "lytta" meaning madness" (madness should be in quotes to be consistent with earlier examples)
• link swine influenza earlier
• please consider if any of these links might be beneficial to the reader (I can see leaving out many of the geographical links, but several locations (countries/cities) are already linked so it would be good to be consistent throughout): Hispaniola, Columbus, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Barbados, Philadelphia, Newgate Prison, Gloucester, Vaccination Act, conscientious objector, ancient Greek, protein, 2009 influenza pandemic, cervical cancer, eradicate poliomyelitis, amoebae, Botswana, Ethiopia, disease surveillance, strain, host, public health, New York City, Nigeria, Chad, Pakistan, Afghanistan, HIV-1, incubation period, anti-retroviral, virulence/virulent, Panama Canal, Ghana, Middle Ages, donated blood, hypodermic needle, Needle exchange programme, intravenous drug users, foot and mouth diseases in the UK, Thailand, paddy field, Urals, Somalia, Tanzania, Kenya, emerging disease, Côte d'Ivoire, sugarbeet, leafhopper, Beet curly top virus, Rice hoja blanca virus, mealybug, Cacao swollen-shoot virus, Kansas, wheat curl mite (redlinks are ok), Papaya ringspot virus, vector, Rice yellow mottle virus (=rice yellow sobemovirus?), Toxoptera citricidus, São Paulo, coevolved, Cape Province, Culex modestus, Kent, paramyxovirus, Nipah virus, Mastomys natalensis, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, human genome, genes, photosynthesis; in some instances I noticed that a term was linked only on its second or third occurrence, so this should be checked too
• Aztec should be linked in the earlier of the two captions; might it be possible to combine these two similar captions, perhaps by using a double image with caption placed in-between, e.g. "Sixteenth-century Aztec drawings of victims of smallpox (above) and measles (below)"

I tried this without success. Graham Colm (talk) 11:41, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I used a multiple image template to do this, but revert if you don't like it. Sasata (talk) 17:16, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I like it - thank you. Graham Colm (talk) 17:40, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "during 1781–82 which was" comma before which
• "She followed him there" would "accompanied" be more accurate?

No, she went a short time later. Graham Colm (talk)

• hydrophobia should be linked (in this case, wiktionary-linked) earlier

The only Wikipedia link is to Rabies. Graham Colm (talk)

• I've moved this link earlier. Sasata (talk) 17:16, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Successes came quickly, by 1970 smallpox was no longer endemic" comma should perhaps be a semicolon
• "it is not the strain of cowpox that Edward Jenner had used"
• "Before the September 11 attacks on America in 2001, it was planned to destroy" who planned this?
• SARS should be spelled out on the 1st occurrence
• "reported the deaths of five young gay men" probably better to use "homosexual" to avoid ambiguity

I don't think the term is ambiguous anymore - at least in the UK. Graham Colm (talk)

• "far east" is capitalized according to our article on the subject
• link vertebrates earlier
• "arthropod borne virus" should be hyphenated, no?
• "There are more than 500 species of arboviruses, but in the 1930s only three were known to cause disease in humans: yellow fever, dengue fever and Pappataci fever." before the colon it sounds like the three causative viruses will be listed, not the three resultant diseases
• "… West Nile virus arrived in New York in 1999." city or state? (there's another instance of this later in subsection "West Nile virus")
• "where over 40,000 cases were reported and around 150 deaths." -> "where over 40,000 cases and around 150 deaths were reported."
• "and further trees were lost" further->additional
• "more than 6 million citrus trees" -> six
• United Kingdom and United States are inconsistently abbreviated throughout the article
• "The mosquito (Culex modestus) that can carry the virus breeds on the marshes of north Kent. This species was not previously thought to be present in the United Kingdom …" Unclear as to whether "This species" refers to the mosquito or the virus
• "Later more than 265 cases of encephalitis," later is redundant
• "About ten percent of all current photosynthesis uses genes that have been transferred to plants by viruses." This sentence sounds odd to me … first of all, photosynthesis doesn't use genes (directly), but rather gene products (i.e., proteins); second, why "current" photosynthesis–is this different than ancient photosynthesis? Perhaps the sentence should indicate that the responsible genes were transferred from cyanobacteria?

Thanks for these thorough reviews. I have incorporated all you advice apart from the four points above. I hope I haven't missed anything, or messed-up. It was very kind of you to be so patient and thorough - I am very grateful. Graham Colm (talk) 11:41, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're quite welcome. To speed things up, I made some final tweaks myself. I believe the article meets all of the FA criteria and am happy to support its promotion. Sasata (talk) 21:26, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Comments on comprehensiveness and prose - reading through now - queries below...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:19, 7 July 2013 (UTC) no other prose issues are jumping out at me and I can't see anything obvious left out...but I'll also wait to see what others say. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:53, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Should it be "species-specific"?

As humans became more dependent on domesticated animals, any outbreaks of disease among their livestock – in animals these are called epizootics – could have devastating consequences - this sentence should be reworked if possible but I am not sure how do do this without losing meaning. I was tempted to leave ust "called epizootics" as the link and the fairly obvious understanding that it isn't a name for ust livestock should be sufficient...I think?

Humans have lived with herpes virus infections since humans first came into being. - can we somehow remove one human from the sentence.... fold into the next sentence, maybe remove and replace with " Herpes virus infections first infected the ancestors of modern humans over 80 million years ago." (the implication they are still current is in the next bit

which contemporary observers described as something new - "something" just strikes me as a bit too general..."a new malady"?

He decided to test the "theory" - dequote

Thanks. I have adopted these suggestions. Graham Colm (talk) 19:24, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And many thanks for taking the time to read the article and your support. Graham Colm (talk) 21:02, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• What a fascinating topic. I'll try to revisit to read it properly. The lead pic lacks the grand sweep of the text in the lead. Is there no pic that could embody the big picture (or the early picture) more satisfyingly? Tony (talk) 15:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give this some thought and see what I can find. Graham Colm (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

• Whitefly image caption should end in period

Added :-) Graham Colm (talk) 22:03, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Compare the captions for the two Aztec drawings - why the difference?

I have been looking at those for over two years! Fixed. Graham Colm (talk) 22:03, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Possible to provide page numbers for images scanned from books?

Added. Graham Colm (talk) 22:03, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Everything with a life+70 tag (or with PD-Art and no parameters filled in) needs an additional tag indicating US licensing, per "You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States"

Added, I think. Have I got these right? Graham Colm (talk) 22:03, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good! Nikkimaria (talk) 03:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Edward_Jenner2.jpg: second source link is dead

Dead one gone.Graham Colm (talk) 22:03, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Weisse-Fliege.jpg: possible to translate image description page? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:26, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No sorry. Would a machine translation do? Graham Colm (talk) 22:03, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Added this using Google Translate:

"Description: Whitefly,Source: own work'Photographer: gaucho: Copyright Status: GNU FDL Free Documentation License" Graham Colm (talk) 22:48, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – minor ones.

• "Compulsory vaccination was not well received and, following protests, the Anti Vaccination League and the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League...", 'Anti-Vaccination' is hyphenated, is it not?
• Author should be given for Ref(s) 123 and 152. For the latter ref, the title is wrong -- it should be 'Polio works in Nigeria are shot dead'
• Ref 149 should be pp.
• Why is the publish date and title not given for Ref 151? Lemonade51 (talk) 02:08, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for spotting these errors – much appreciated. I have made the necessary edits. Graham Colm (talk) 05:52, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support – My understanding of viruses is not quite scholar, but I found the article to be well written and very informative -- not least the section on smallpox. I've made a minor edit with the news sources, so that they use the cite news template – this should keep the reference format consistent, prevent any Bare URLs and make it easy for the bots to archive links, if they become dead. Just one more thing – "Persian physician Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865–925) (known as "Rhazes") first identified it...", avoid adjacent sets of brackets, per WP:MOS. Lemonade51 (talk) 02:00, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help and support, which is much appreciated. I have reformatted those brackets. Graham Colm (talk) 08:26, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. Hi Graham, I've been reading through this for the last couple of days. I can't judge the science, but from the point of view of a general reader, I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot from it. A few suggestions:

1. It would be helpful if the first section could be a very brief, summary-style explanation of what a virus is. As it is, the general reader might be going into the article without really knowing what it's about. If some or all of the "Friendly virus" section had been at the top, that would have helped. For example, you end the lead with an exciting sentence – "They drive evolution by transferring genes across species, play important roles in ecosystems and are essential to life" – but it's not until the end that we learn what it means.
2. I like the main/see-also links at the top of sections, but you stopped doing it from the Influenza section until SARS.
3. I would call the Epizootics section "Nonhuman animals," or "Nonhuman-animal viruses," with main/see-also links to Veterinary virology and Epizootics at the top, and the Agriculture section "Plants," or "Plant viruses," with a main/see-also link to Plant virus.
4. It might be worth explaining somewhere that eradication doesn't mean destruction, for example by linking to Eradication of infectious diseases.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:31, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, these are are useful suggestions, which I will incorporate soon. I think a link to Introduction to viruses might help the general reader too. Thank you for reading the article and your review. Graham Colm (talk) 22:02, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Cryptic C62.

• Avoid one- and two-sentence paragraphs. I see examples in the lead and throughout the article. These should be expanded, merged, or deleted.

I have merged some paragraphs to avoid this where possible. Graham Colm (talk)

• I see several instances of "a year" being used instead of "per year". The former sounds natural in spoken language, but the latter is far more precise and natural in spoken written language.

I only spotted a couple, which I have changed. This might be an WP:ENGVAR issue, but I rarely hear "per year" used in spoken language. Graham Colm (talk)

I mistyped. The second "spoken" should have said "written". That way the sentence would, you know... make sense. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:37, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Despite having no idea that viruses existed, Louis Pasteur and Edward Jenner were the first to develop vaccines" I strongly dislike this phrasing, as it suggests that they developed the vaccines by accident.

I have deleted introductory phrase. Graham Colm (talk)

• "Smallpox virus was one of the biggest killers of the 20th century" Avoid imprecise colloquial language.

I have changed this to "Smallpox virus was a major cause death in the 20th century, killing about 300 million people." Graham Colm (talk)

• "Measles is highly contagious." If you're going to give a one-sentence introduction to the virus, there is a lot of information that can be reasonably squeezed into the sentence besides how contagious it is. What are the symptoms? What systems of the body does it attack? Where did it emerge?

I have deleted this sentence. The origins of measles virus is discussed in the "In antiquity" section and the pathogenicity of the infection, which is complex, is beyond the scope of this article. Graham Colm (talk) 20:25, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Why is the content in Non-human animal viruses not presented in chronological order?

It is except where the subject changes from rinderpest to foot-and-mouth. Graham Colm (talk)

• "SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome)" This is not the acronym convention we use. MOS:ACRO suggests "Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)" instead. I have not seen any other instances of this in the article.

I have changed this accordingly. Graham Colm (talk) 20:25, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Regarding the section Friendly viruses. Is the name "friendly viruses" actually used in scientific literature? If so, why does it not appear in the section itself? If not, why is it used as the section title?

The term is used in the literature. (See "Varela M, Spencer TE, Palmarini M, Arnaud F (October 2009). "Friendly viruses: the special relationship between endogenous retroviruses and their host". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1178: 157–72. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.05002.x. PMID 19845636."). I have included it in the body of the section. Graham Colm (talk)

It isn't particularly helpful to include it only in the last paragraph of the section. Perhaps I should clarify my concern: A reader sees a section titled Friendly virus, and thinks "Oh, what's that?". The reader reads through the section, but is never given a definition of the term. The reader cries and vomits and oozes pus all over his keyboard. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:23, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The concept is new (but not recent) and there is no accepted definition that I can source. Graham Colm (talk) 17:56, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "... has led modern virologists to consider them in a new light." Avoid imprecise colloquial language.

Changed to "The discovery of the abundance of viruses and their overwhelming presence in many ecosystems has led modern virologists to reconsider their role in the biosphere." Graham Colm (talk)

• "Viruses are everywhere." Is this necessary? We're building an encyclopedia, not a children's book.

I have deleted this introductory sentence. Graham Colm (talk) 17:49, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Why is In antiquity not presented in chronological order? The tomato yellow leaf curl paragraph can be placed before the first measles paragraph to preserve chronologicality.

Because all the rest of the section is about human infections and I don't want to break the flow. Graham Colm (talk)

• "As a physician, he was a skilled observer and kept meticulous records." I find this sentence a bit mysterious. Why are we attempting to portray Sydenham as a super cool dude when the observation in the previous sentence is blatantly wrong? By including this description, we give authority not only to Sydenham but also to his toxic vapour theory.

Changed to "His theory was wrong but he was a skilled observer and kept meticulous records." Graham Colm (talk) 17:56, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Meep. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for these useful comments. Much appreciated. PS. What does "Meep." mean? Graham Colm (talk) 20:25, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Meep" is just a meaningless filler word. I don't like the look of a signature sitting on its own line all by itself, so I add "Meep" in front of it to make it more pleasing to the eye. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:23, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 06:36, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 10:02, 30 July 2013 (UTC) [6].[reply]

Koala[edit]

Nominator(s): LittleJerry (talk) 19:46, 26 June 2013 (UTC), Sasata[reply]

Submitted for your approval, one of the most iconic animals of Australia. I started working on this article months ago and Sasata was nice enough to jump on board and improve its comprehensiveness, sourcing and prose. We now feel it is ready. LittleJerry (talk) 19:46, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This is a WikiCup nomination. The following nominators are WikiCup participants: Sasata. To the nominator: if you do not intend to submit this article at the WikiCup, feel free to remove this notice. UcuchaBot (talk) 00:01, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Images So far I've only looked at the images. They are all free licenses and on Commons. I did some minor fixing on two of them on Commons. I have no issues with the images. Will look over the rest later but first impression is very good. PumpkinSky talk 12:01, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support now PumpkinSky talk 17:54, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to see such an important article here.

• "the continent's eastern and southern regions" - The country, or the island. Not the continent, surely?

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 01:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "It is possible that these variations are separate subspecies" It's the populations that are possibly subspecies, not the variations. The variations are the differences in colour.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 01:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Further details about the animal's biology were revealed in the 1800s by several English scientists who investigated various aspects of its biology." Repetition

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 01:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• No mention of the relationship between native Australians and Koalas in the lead gives off an ever-so-slight colonial feel.

Added. LittleJerry (talk) 01:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "The koala's genus name" Generic name or possibly genus's name? We wouldn't say "species name", I don't think

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 01:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Phascolarctos cinereus may have emerged as a dwarf form of P. stirtoni known as the giant koala." The dwarf form wasn't known as the giant koala, surely?

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 01:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "typical for a "primitive" animal." What is meant by "primitive"? Do you mean in a phylogentic sense?

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 01:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "in other tree genera" They can't- they can be found in/on trees of other genera.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 01:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "In general, however, koalas tend to avoid energy wasting aggressive behaviour." Energy-wasting?

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 01:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Males begin to produce sperm, but they have limited reproductive success until they are large enough to stand against a mature rival.[82]" When? When they're sexually mature? If so, when do they stop growing?

Fixed. Things got mixed up. LittleJerry (talk) 01:43, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not sure I'm keen on the in-text external link.

Me neither, removed. Sasata (talk) 02:47, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Is there perhaps potential for a section on the use of koalas for food? It's mentioned a few times that Aboriginal groups utilised them- is this still going on? Are they hunted?
• The lack of a distribution section is also a bit of a surprise

Already in "Behaviour and ecology" section. LittleJerry (talk) 01:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "the animals can survive in urban areas provided there are enough trees, though urban koalas are vulnerable to collisions with vehicles and attacks by domestic dogs;[150] about 4000 koalas are killed this way every year." By dogs, or by dogs and vehicles combined?

Combined; now clarified. Sasata (talk) 02:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thoroughly engaging read, definitely a worthy topic for FA status. I've no doubt that this is close. J Milburn (talk) 22:48, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Almost full support (as long as source/image checks come back OK); I still wonder if there's potential for a more explicit mention of their exploitation as a food source by humans. It's alluded to a couple of times, but never properly addressed. If a tweak to the article (even a line or two) is made or an explanation as to why that's not possible/ideal is forthcoming, I'll happily switch to a full support. Other than that, the article seems comprehensive and well-sourced, and it's definitely engagingly written. J Milburn (talk) 13:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Sasata is getting to your concern. LittleJerry (talk) 16:44, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks from me too! I've added a short paragraph about Aboriginal hunting here; does this address your concerns? Sasata (talk) 17:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Great stuff! J Milburn (talk) 18:42, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Cwmhiraeth - a good read. Here are a few points my over-pernickety eye picked out:

Now supporting this candidacy Cwmhiraeth (talk) 04:55, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The word "populations" is overused in the last 2 sentences of #1 of the lead.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Koalas were known to indigenous Australians for millennia" - Though no doubt true, this seems an odd remark.

I don't understand. LittleJerry (talk)

The remark was added because I was concerned that there was no mention of the relationship of Aboriginal groups and Koalas, leading to a somewhat Euro-centric lead. I'm open to it being adjusted, but I do feel a mention of Aboriginals in the lead is needed. J Milburn (talk) 15:32, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, how about something like "Koalas play an important role in the culture of indigenous Australians" Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:09, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 03:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After some back-and-forth adjusting, I've changed it to "Koalas have been known to indigenous Australians for millennia; they hunted the animals and depicted them in myths and cave art." Does that seem satisfactory? Sasata (talk) 01:04, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What about "Koalas were hunted by indigenous Australians and depicted in myths and cave art for millennia". I agree that "known to" sounds a bit silly. --99of9 (talk) 15:48, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 14:54, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The caption for the range map needs clarification.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "larger molars and premolars (causing the teeth to move downwards within the head)" - Is this downward movement in both jaws? Please clarify.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "These forms are distinguished by pelage colour and thickness, size and skull shape." - Somewhat ambiguous - I thought at first it was the skull that had varying thickness and size.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "On 9 April 2013, a team of scientists from the Queensland University of Technology led by professor of microbiology Peter Timms announced they had sequenced the koala genome." - This sentence seems unnecessarily detailed.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Koalas have curved, sharp claws that allow them to climb trees." - Lions have curved, sharp claws. Are they allowed to climb trees too?

Yes. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "The koala has a cartilaginous pad at the end of the spine that may serve to make it more comfortable to sit in tree forks." - The second half of this sentence might be better "that may make it more comfortable when it perches in the fork of a tree."

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "... resulting in more efficient stomach digestion and nutrient absorption in the small intestine.[42] Koalas may also store food in their cheek pouches before it is ready to be chewed.[43] After chewing, the food passes through the relatively small stomach and into the small intestine, which digests the eucalyptus leaves to provide most of the animal's energy" - Seems somewhat repetitive. Perhaps the cheek pouch sentence could be moved and the other two combined.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "The population on Magnetic Island represents the northern limit of their range." - "its range".

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "In Queensland, koalas are unevenly distributed with the exception of the southeast." - are they numerous or scarce in the southeast?

This is how the source presents it. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 17:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• ... they have meagre fat reserves and cannot be deprived of food for more than 24 hours." - I think you mean that they need to feed often otherwise this will starve.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Paragraph 2 of "Foraging and activities" seems to imply that the koala uses its limited brain power to make decisions on limiting energy use and conserving energy.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• What happens if it rains continuously for more than 24 hours?

Doesn't say. They are different sources. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "... and individuals are known to sniff the base of a tree before climbing.[62] Scent marking is known ..." - Overuse of "known".

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• • Will continue later. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:33, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• "When climbed over by a conspecific, ..." - how about "When another individual climbs over it, ..."?

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 21:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "At seven weeks of age, the head grows longer and becomes proportionally large" " - You have just been referring to the female so perhaps "the joey's head"

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 21:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "...to attach a loop of ropey bark to the end of the long, thin pole, ..." - Perhaps "a long, thin pole"

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 21:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Since European arrival, localised deforestation of eucalypts ..." - I would prefer "Since Europeans arrived" or "Since the arrival of Europeans".

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 21:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Chlamydiosis" is mentioned in the last paragraph but not by name in the health and mortality section.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 21:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not realy. Chlamydiosis is a diseases caused by a pathogen in the Chlamydophila genus. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 04:58, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 00:13, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• • Not many problems this time. The whole article is an interesting read and I now know much more about koalas than I did previously. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:56, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. LittleJerry (talk) 21:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All the points I raised have been actioned and I now support this nomination. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 04:55, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review – the FA coordinator has asked for a source review, which I shall be happy to carry out within the next three days (or within the next 24 hours if the British Library has the books onsite.) Tim riley (talk) 13:24, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Tks Tim, although pls see this by way of clarification... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:39, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, right! Well I'd do it tomorrow with those books the BL has to hand. A swift and selective check, reporting back by tea-time tomorrow GMT. Tim riley (talk) 13:49, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review and spot-checks

• References: only one quibble on the referencing:
  • Ref 118: see MOS:ALLCAPS
• Spot-checks
  • Online sources
    • 15% of online refs checked. All accurate, with no close paraphrase
  • Books
    • Moyal: checked refs 2a/b, 36, 45, 112, 131, 142 and 149 – all fine
    • Martin and Handasyde: checked refs 20a/b, 41a, 57, 76, 78, 91 and 126 – all fine
    • Jackson: checked refs 21a, 37a, 52, 70, 72 and 150 – all fine.

All impeccably done. And I greatly enjoyed the article, let me say. Tim riley (talk) 15:35, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for checking, Tim; I fixed the title of ref#118. Sasata (talk) 16:01, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comments Support - on comprehensiveness and prose reading through now. queries below. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:00, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder whether "within the order Diprotodontia" is necessary in the lead. I feel a little like we're bombarding the reader with classifications.

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 13:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Err, we sometimes call it a koala bear here in oz too... :P

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 13:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It has a full body length - why is "full" needed?

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 13:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In Queensland, koalas are unevenly distributed and uncommon expect in the southeast - "except"?

I don't understand. LittleJerry (talk) 13:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

this - done now. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:44, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

looks alright otherwise. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:21, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 05:51, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 10:03, 30 July 2013 (UTC) [7].[reply]

Colorado River[edit]

Nominator(s): Shannon 05:38, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note to reviewers: Starting July 7 I will have spotty Internet access at best, so I may not be able to respond promptly to comments. If I don't respond within 3-4 days or so, please feel free to cancel this nomination. Shannon 16:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By global standards, the Colorado is a mere stream, probably not hitting the top one thousand in terms of volume. However, it's the lifeline of the Desert Southwest – source of water for 40 million people and some of the richest farmland in both the U.S. and Mexico. Dammed thirteen times and controlled by enough reservoirs to flood England two feet deep, the Colorado is one of our most litigated rivers, and among our most storied, too – from ancient civilizations rivaling the Aztec and Inca, to a one-armed man's 1869 descent of its perilous canyons, to a "mishap" that created California's largest lake, or the heroic efforts of those who raised Hoover Dam in the nadir of the Great Depression.

I've made my best effort to represent this on Wikipedia; article passed GA in March last year. The article has been stable for a very long time, though before that it went through a fair share of fights and subsequent revision, which I believe has contributed to a good balance in the neutrality of this hotly contested topic. Shannon 05:38, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

• File:Coloradorivermapnew1.jpg: second source link needs updating
  • done Shannon 17:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• File:Coronado-Remington.jpg: source link is dead
  • done Shannon 17:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• File:John_D._Lee.jpg needs US PD tag and more info: who is the author, when/where was this first published?
  • I could only trace the source to the Utah State Historical Society here, there is no information regarding the photographer or publication date, there is the mention of one Charles Kelly who previously owned this photograph but that's it. Lee died in 1877, so this photograph was taken well before 1923.Shannon 17:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• File:Mohave_No._2_at_Yuma_1876.jpg: when/where was this first published? The given source is not pre-1923. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:23, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I couldn't find the book. This site however gives the date as 1876, should I add it to the Commons page for the image?

For the latter two images I can either remove or replace them if further copyright complications arise. Shannon 17:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comments - taking a look now - will jot notes below: Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:50, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

and one notable section in the Grand Canyon reaches up to 110 feet (34 m) in depth. - why is it notable? If it is just because it is deep, let the facts speak for themselves and remove the word as it is a bit fluffy.

Removed "notable". Shannon 20:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Between 85–90 percent of the Colorado River's discharge originates in snowmelt - either "Between 85 and 90 percent of the Colorado River's discharge originates in snowmelt" or "85–90 percent of the Colorado River's discharge originates in snowmelt"

Changed to "85 and 90 percent". Shannon 20:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

link snowpack

Done Shannon 20:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

mainly in present-day Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, since at least 1 A.D - that looks really odd. I'd prefer " mainly in present-day Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, since 200 years ago" or "the past 2000 years".

Changed to "2,000 years". Shannon 20:21, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On a widescreen computer, the text which precedes Powell's quote in the Early explorers section is indented by a photograph, hence the quote is flush with the preceding text and does not format as a quote. It is confusing to read.

Changed image position to right. That should fix the problem. Shannon 20:21, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The logical location for the Major tributaries segment would be as a subsection under the Course section.

Done. Originally, the location of that section was based on the Columbia River article, a FA, which has the tributaries section at the very bottom. Now that I moved it, I actually think it looks better, so I'll go with this. Shannon 20:41, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I am missing this but have you covered when it was first called the Colorado river? I think "why" is touched upon.

I believe this section is sufficient: "The name Tizon lasted for the next two hundred years, while the name Colorado ("Red River") was first applied to a tributary of the Gila River, possibly the Verde River, circa 1720. The first known map to label the main stem as the Colorado was drawn by French cartographer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin in 1743." It's under the Early explorers section under Human History. Shannon 23:37, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, must have missed that. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:40, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My only small comment is that colorado doesn't mean red river, it just means red (unless there is an older Spanish meaning that I'm not aware of). 108.205.160.241 (talk) 23:22, 30 June 2013 (UTC) (user:manfrombuttonwillow)[reply]

Ah, thanks for catching that. I've corrected it to say Rio Colorado Shannon 23:26, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Anything more about water quality or pollution?

Sort of covered in "Environmental impacts". I believe there's a good amount of information out there, I could try and elaborate a bit there. Shannon 23:37, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reading one of the sources, sounds like there's been massive change and degradation - expected really when you dam a river and radically change the downstream environment - so I think this could be expanded a bit. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:40, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some information regarding impacts of agricultural runoff and pesticides, as well as salinity control and remediation programs including the recent Minute 319 decision between US and Mexico. Shannon 23:11, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looks better - I wonder whether the future bit is worth being the last section of the article (i.e. moving wildlife to below geology, and recreation sections to above the Engineering and development ) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:30, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You mean putting "Wildlife and plants" and "Geology" into a single "Natural history" section and "Recreation" to above engineering... hmmm... It does work too, but then the engineering section is left sort of hanging off at the end. Other river FAs such as Columbia River and Rogue River (Oregon) also have their information regarding flora/fauna and recreational use coming after sections about engineering/dams/water projects etc. Shannon 05:06, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, you have a point too. I was more just musing - it might work if recreation was subsection of engineering (rename human impact/development?) ..not hugely fussed and happy to "go with the flow" as it were....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:44, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking of splitting off "Uncertain future" entirely from "Engineering and development" and putting it as the last section. If I can find more information/extend the section somewhat, I'll probably do it. Shannon 22:10, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ultimately I doubt there is one best way of arrangement here, I was just musing really. Overall I think I can support this on prose and comprehensiveness as I can't see any content-holes or prose clangers left, however I am not familiar enough with the topic to be totally confident and will keep an eye on other comments. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support now and Comments Leads should be summaries and as such should need few, if any, footnotes. You have 19 of them in the lead. There are also dozens of harv errors, meaning your footnotes aren't being linked properly. I'll have to get to that later.PumpkinSky talk 02:58, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I will take care of the refs currently present in the lead. Regarding the citation errors how shall I go about fixing that? I am not sure how to make it work. Shannon 06:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Put importScript('User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js'); in your skin, I use monobook so I have it in monobook.js. I'll go fix one so you see what I'm talking about. PumpkinSky talk 00:06, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have been able to clear up most of the referencing errors but I am running into problems with some, e.g. ref 4 (Hoover Dam 75th Anniversary Symposium) where there is no author listed, ref 219 (Ghiglieri and Myers) where there are multiple authors, and ref 138 (Leuchtenberg), which just stubbornly won't work. Can you enlighten me on how to sort these out? Shannon 05:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You canlist up to 4 last names as in sfn|Smith|Jones|Batton|Quiggly|year|p or pp= if app. It'll display Smith et al. For no author, Just use the name of company or whatever for no author. See Frederick Russell Burnham for samples. We're almost done converting that to sfn format. PumpkinSky talk 09:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

These have been fixed. Using the "editor#" parameters allows the template to generate an anchor for the 75th Anniversary Symposium, and Ghiglieri & Myers was fixed by using "last2" and "first2" instead of "coauthors" to list Myers. Choess (talk) 18:40, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Much nicer. Refs 15 and 78 don't link at all and 10 refs still in the lead. PumpkinSky talk 20:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually there are only 5 refs in the lead and the other 5 are in the geobox. I think that's a reasonable amount but if they would be better removed entirely let me know. Shannon 02:38, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed three refs that weren't linked at all. I moved two refs to the body. Support now. PumpkinSky talk 23:02, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose, comprehensiveness, and verifiability. In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I am a member of the Rivers project and that I recently made nitpicky improvements to the punctuation, citation data, and prose. I ran spotchecks on citations 30, 53, 126, 244, and 251 and found no copyvios or too-close paraphrasing. This is an excellent article about an important river. Finetooth (talk) 21:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Comprehensive, well-written, and nicely organized. I have one minor quibble: the article isn't very consistent when it comes to abbreviating units of measurement. Some are abbreviated (mainly in the course section), and others aren't. But otherwise, really exceptional work. (I am also a member of WikiProject Rivers.) LittleMountain5 06:48, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed the outliers this morning by removing "abbr=on" from the conversion templates in the "Course" section and a small number elsewhere. Exceptions are OK in tables and the geobox, where space is limited, but the main text and notes are now internally consistent. Finetooth (talk) 17:52, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, it looks much better. LittleMountain5 21:38, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Minor comment - There are a few "with" expressions that need attention:

• "The LCRV is one of the most densely populated areas along the river, with numerous towns including Bullhead City, Arizona, Needles, California, and Lake Havasu City, Arizona". and there are numerous towns?

• "They soon established themselves as the dominant Native American tribe in the Colorado River basin, with their territory stretching over parts of present-day Arizona," and their territory stretched?

• "The Colorado's Cataract Canyon and many reaches in the Colorado headwaters are even more heavily used than the Grand Canyon, with about 60,000 boaters running a single 4.5-mile (7.2 km) section above Radium, Colorado, each year." and about 60,000 boaters run? Graham Colm (talk) 16:17, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right. I took the liberty of fixing these exactly as you suggested. Finetooth (talk) 21:55, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 05:34, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 10:04, 30 July 2013 (UTC) [8].[reply]

God of War II[edit]

Nominator(s): JDC808 ♫ 03:50, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because this is a nice article and the next article on my list of God of War games to go through FAC and hopefully be promoted. The article has received significant work over the past year or so and is modeled on a recent FA (God of War). God of War II is considered one of the best, if not the best PlayStation 2 game of all time, and some think it's the best game in this series. --JDC808 ♫ 03:50, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Cirt (addressed)[edit]

Addressed comments moved to talk page. — Cirt (talk) 05:27, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, thanks very much for such responsiveness to my comments. — Cirt (talk) 05:27, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you :) --JDC808 ♫ 05:29, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, It looks to be in a pretty good shape. However, I am concerned about the plot's weight. It looks to me that every boss fight is explained although some of them are not very relevant for the story. Still, I haven't played that game in a long time so I'm not sure about it.Tintor2 (talk) 21:16, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks and okay, I'll look over it and see if I can trim it some in that regards. --JDC808 ♫ 03:33, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Image check done by Cirt - see talk page. GermanJoe (talk) 07:01, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Hahc21[edit]

• I am going to read this between tonight and tomorrow :) — ΛΧΣ²¹ 02:30, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Oh, well. Most of my complaints were fixed in this article when I pointed them out in previous FACs, so I support. Cheers! — ΛΧΣ²¹ 20:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Haha, thanks. Whenever there's comments on my current FAC that can also be applied to the other articles I plan to nominate, I apply them there so I won't have that same issue arise. --JDC808 ♫ 21:04, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

As far as I can tell, all the sources are reliable. I spot-checked about 10 sources and didn't find any issues except for one. The statement "the game features four times as many boss fights and improved puzzles than the original" (which is a statistic and requires a citation) is not supported by the IGN review.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 12:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That info and source were there when I began editing the article, so I assumed the info was in the source because it is true (God of War had 3 boss fights, this has 11). I checked the source and he said it has double the amount of bosses. He didn't specifically state "improved puzzles" but he did say some were more difficult, so I put that instead. --JDC808 ♫ 18:11, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

With that fixed, the article's sourcing looks okay. However, I'm too lazy to check whether the article meets the other criteria, so it would be inappropriate for me to vote.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:02, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Darkwarriorblake[edit]

• Support - I'm not sure I see the relevance of the see also section, which links to very unrelated sections. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:55, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It was suggested to me to do that in the GA review. --JDC808 ♫ 03:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• There is an Easter Egg/Duplicate link in the plot to God of War I, disguised as "Old Foe". As the link just leads to the general article I think it can be misleading. Which Old Foe? Assuming I haven't played the game, and I haven't, I do not know who the old foe is and going to the GOW I article will not help as I assume it features several foes. It might be better to just state the foe.Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:55, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "old foe" is referring to the Barbarian King. --JDC808 ♫ 03:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Duplicate link to Chains of Olympus in "Release" and God of War III Ultimate Edition in "Soundtrack".Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:55, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Got God of War III one. I think Chains of Olympus is showing a duplicate because in the 3rd paragraph of Plot, in this sentence, "He eventually encounters the imprisoned Titan Atlas, who initially resents Kratos for his current predicament." - current predicament is linked to Chains of Olympus. --JDC808 ♫ 03:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Maybe I am thinking of the wrong one but was there no critical reaction to the sex/nudity in the game at the time? The critical section doesn't seem to mention it. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:55, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't remember the reviews covering it. The reviewers could have missed it because it was kinda hidden in this game. I'll read over the reviews again. --JDC808 ♫ 03:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Maybe it was the first game and maybe I'm misremembering it, I know it was brought up in relation to Hot Coffee I think because it featured actual on-screen stuff. Doesn't matter then, I must be confused. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:42, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 05:19, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by GrahamColm 10:01, 28 July 2013 (UTC) [9].[reply]

Garden Warbler[edit]

Nominator(s): Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:20, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is the Blackcap's plain cousin, noted for, well, its lack of distinguishing features. There is so much overlap in the literature on these two bird species, it seemed logical to follow the Blackcap's FAC with this one. There is lots of research material, so let me know if you think I've omitted something important. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:20, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Aa77zz

Rather than photographs of figs, woodland, a cuckoo and Messiaen it would be better to have pictures of chicks, eggs, a nest or the bird in flight. Aa77zz (talk) 10:59, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely agree, but this is what is on Commons. Having said that, even if there is a good choice, I think it's useful to have habitat images at least, rather just pictures of the bird. Here, it's either figs and Messiaen or nothing Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are a couple of photos used in the article on German Wiki but unfortunately the quality is low and probably not adequate for this article.

• Do the statistics at the end of the section on breeding apply over the entire range of the warbler? Where was the study carried out? Does the breeding range of the warbler entirely lie within the range of the cuckoo?

• It's a UK study, I've made that clear now. I suspect, but cannot verify, that losses will be higher elsewhere, particularly in warmer areas, since the Cuckoo is declining in the UK. The Garden Warbler's range in completely within the range of the Cuckoo in Europe. In parts of Asia, the very similar Oriental Cuckoo may replace its relative Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:39, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• How efficient is the Garden Warbler at rejecting the cuckoo's eggs?

• It's difficult to quantify this. It remains a host, unlike Blackcap, so it's not perfect at discriminating, but the Cuckoo eggs have to look convincingly like those of the warbler (unlike the Dunnock, a recent host, which will accept anything egg-like) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:39, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The value of less than 3% for the brood parasitism by the Common Cuckoo is small and (to me) doesn't appear very significant. But this short article mentions that the Cuckoo is a brood parasite of the Garden Warbler on four occasions - the lead, breading, parasites and the photo. Each mention seems reasonable but the repetition perhaps gives the impression that this parasitism is more significant than it perhaps really is. Aa77zz (talk) 06:45, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I see what you mean, but I'm not sure what the way forward is. The image, if it stays, has to have the caption to make sense, and I don't know which other occurrence is most expendable. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:39, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• " It is second only to the Eurasian Reed Warbler in terms of the number of parasitised nests."; the 3% figure, from what I can tell, is for deaths owing to brood parasitism. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:51, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Amounts to the same thing, the Cuckoo chick pushes the warbler's eggs or chicks out of the nest, so they always perish Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:39, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• My point was that repetition may be worthy simply because it is one of the most commonly parasited species (even if the death rate is at 3%) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:37, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support My concerns here and on the Talk page have been addressed. Another excellent article from Jim. Aa77zz (talk) 07:57, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for review and particularly for sorting out the Cuckoo confusion Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:05, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review by Crisco 1492

• File:Sylviaborinmap2.jpg is fine
• File:Sylvia borin.ogg is fine
• File:Sylvia borin (Örebro County).jpg is fine
• File:The Holies - geograph.org.uk - 915202.jpg is fine, although the highlights are a little blown
• File:Garden Warbler.jpg should have a note that the source is now claiming full copyright. Use this template

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:51, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Ficus carica0.jpg is missing author data and I don't see any indication in the source that it is free

• Removed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:51, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Cuculus canorus vogelartinfo chris romeiks CHR0431.jpg should have a date

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:51, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Olivier Messiaen 1930.jpg - I'm getting "Access denied" from the source. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:25, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Removed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:51, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for image review. For various reasons I don't like the other Commons images for figs or Messiaen, so just removed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:51, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Addressed comments from Crisco 1492 moved to talk

• Support on prose and images. Good job! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:37, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Many thanks, Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:01, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - added author, source and permission for File:Ficus carica0.jpg. Should be OK to re-add, if you want it as illustration. GermanJoe (talk) 14:33, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks Joe, I've put it back Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:53, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

• Is Mann et al 2010 or 2012?
• Cocker or Cocker & Mabey?
• No citations to Gibbons
• Publisher for Snow & Snow? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:19, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Gibbons ref added, others fixed. Thanks, Nikkimaria Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:25, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment reading through now. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:26, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

but the Booted Warbler is similar in colour to the Garden Warbler, although it is smaller, more delicately built and has a flesh-coloured bill. - I am not sure we need the bit I've bolded - reads a tad repetitively but I am not sure the meaning is conserved without it...?

Other than that, tentative support (moral or otherwise) as WP birds member. Looks pretty good on prose and comprehensiveness. Sources not spotchecked. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:58, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for support, I've made the suggested edit Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:48, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After a quick look, I would think that the article needs some more polishing to make it easier to read. Snowman (talk) 13:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "It normally forages at below 6 m (20 ft)." I presume that this means less than 6m above ground level, and not sea level. Snowman (talk) 13:09, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Changed as suggested Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:02, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "Over 35 plant species have been recorded as food for this warbler in central Europe, with many more in the Mediterranean region and the African wintering grounds." Does this mean 35 plus many more or that most of the 35 are found in the Med and Africa. Snowman (talk) 13:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Now ...just in central Europe, with many additional species being consumed in the Mediterranean region... Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:02, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for comments, Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:02, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "One brood per year is normal, ...". This eggs hatch quickly and the chicks soon fledge and are soon independent, which seems to give the adult birds time for more nesting. Please double check that they only usually raise one brood per year. Snowman (talk) 09:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The fact that A and B are true doesn't mean that C is true unless the species is habitually double-brooded. Why do you think Shirihae is wrong, his Sylvia monograph is usually accepted as authoritative? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I could be completely mistaken, but having only one brood per year surprises me, so I requested double checking. Snowman (talk) 14:02, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Baker barely mentions breeding, Simms gives much detail, but doesn't mention double broods, I assume because it's unusual for this genus. Found another explicit reference, added Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "The large numbers and huge range of the Garden Warbler mean that it is classed as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature." A and B are true but this does not lead to C being true unless the numbers are declining less that 30% in 10 years or three generations. This issue occurs in the introduction and the "Status" section. I recall bringing up this exact problem in a previous FA. Snowman (talk) 09:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Made clear numbers are stable Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• But the population is probably not stable. The IUCN reference says that "Despite the fact that the population trend appears to be decreasing, ..." Snowman (talk) 13:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• changed to fairly stable, the decline in Europe is small, Scandinavia is increasing, we don't know about Asia, nothing suggesting a large decline. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• This can also be included in the Eurasian Blackcap article. Snowman (talk) 09:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "On average, just over 50% of nests are successful, with early breeding and low population density being positive factors." Probably needs clarification. What is an unsuccessful nest? Are the stats that follow this line only about the successful nests? Do the adults make another nest after an unsuccessful nest? Snowman (talk) 09:28, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I would have thought that it was self-evident that an unsuccessful nest was one from which no young successfully fledged. Do I really need to spell that out? Spelt out. I don't understand the rest of your query, the next sentence explicitly refers to failures, and the rest of the paragraph refers to survival rates of adults and first-year birds, which must by definition have come from successful nests Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• If an nest had five eggs and only three chicks fledged would that be a successful nest or an unsuccessful nest? I would really like to know if the adults would make a second nest, if the first nest failed to produce any chicks. If only 50% of the population had fledged young in a breeding season, then to me this would seem to be quite a low proportion for a short lived bird. Perhaps, a nest is successful if it is structurally successful and does not fall onto the ground of fall apart. Perhaps, the parent birds are successful if they raise a brood. Snowman (talk) 13:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I can't see any basis for a nicely constructed but barren nest being considered successful, from that viewpoint the unused cock's nests are successful. I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility of renesting if the first nest failed, but I can't find any evidence for this. Any nest that produces fledged young is a success. Three out of five would be pretty good for a passerine. I found a few figures for productivity young/nest, and all were above the replacement figure of 2/nest. I didn't quote a productivity because there is no overall average that can be calculated Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The book talks about "breeding success" on page 34. This article defines a breeding success as a pair that fledge at least one chick from a clutch. I have removed "successful nest" from the article and I note that there was no definition of what a successful nest is in the article. Snowman (talk) 23:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• That common sense definition seems to be exactly what I was saying, but your edit clarifies. Incidentally, the Eurasian Blackcap, on which I have masses of information, is also normally single-brooded, so it may be characteristic of the genus. No mention of renesting by failed pairs there either, so if it happens it's not being documented. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:05, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I have now found corroborating information about the single brood of the Garden Warbler, but the Eurasian Blackcap regularly has two broods on Cape Verde, where the climate is favourable (see page 34 of the linked book). Snowman (talk) 09:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I've mentioned in the article that it is sometimes double-brooded in warmer areas Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I wonder if mentioning close relatives would include the new research on the Dohrn's Thrush-Babbler and the clade as in Weak phylogenetic effects on ecological niches of Sylvia warblers. To me it seems incomplete mentioning only the African Hill Babbler. Snowman (talk) 09:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Good find, I hadn't seen this. Now added Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:45, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• This can also be included in the Eurasian Blackcap article. Snowman (talk) 09:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Good idea, I'll do later.

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Provisional impression I have not got a lot of time for editing probably until the winter in the UK. I have listed a few copy editing problems above and I have made some edits to the page to make it easier to read. Going on my quick and partial inspection of the article, I anticipate that the article has many more readability problems and I would think that the article is not up to FA standard yet. Snowman (talk) 09:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for further comments, all actionable comments addressed I think Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Many of my points have been actioned above. It seems likely to me that the article contains more actionable issues. I am not able to spend a lot of time editing, so I would recommend that more reviewers and preferably specialised copy-editors have a look at the article prior to a decision is made on FA status. Snowman (talk) 23:21, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I have found a little time to read the article up to the "Distribution and habitat" section this morning and I am still finding issues, so I think that there are likely to be more issues in the rest of the article. I would guess that a little more copy-editing is needed prior to FA status being awarded. Snowman (talk) 10:35, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I am much happier with the article following Yzx's review and amendments following my comments. I think that the only issues which need clarification are about the birds organ weight changes during body building phases (including prior to migration and during stop overs) and when migrating including when migrating across the Sahara dessert. Snowman (talk) 14:34, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Provisional impression 2. Support FA Status. I have tried to be objective, but I may have a conflict of interest, because I edit bird pages. The article may contain minor MoS and copy-editing problems, but I am not aware of any major omissions and think the article has reached FA status. Snowman (talk) 16:31, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I am aware that few Garden Warblers breed in Ireland, but I do not know why only the north of the island of Ireland is coloured yellow to indicate its breeding range there. I also think that the Outer Hebrides are the wrong colour, because the British Trust for Ornithology have breeding records there. Snowman (talk) 23:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I've adjusted the map, but it's usually the case that ranges are approximate (as it says in the caption). At the edges of the distribution breeding may be intermittent or at low density, making it difficult to choose a definitive line. In the east, surveys are infrequent and coarse-grained, the map could be many miles out in Asia, we have no way of knowing Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:05, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The article includes the rapid incubation and fledging and also the predation, but the connection between these is not provided. Page 34 (linked above) says that predation pressure is likely to have driven selection for this rapid development of the chicks in the nest at the expense of the parents looking after them for 2 weeks after fledging. It also says that chicks can leave the nest before they can fly presumably to reduce the chance of loosing an entire brood to a predator. Snowman (talk) 09:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I'll add shortly Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "... , but conifers and dense plantations are avoided." The atlas of the British Trust for Ornithology book (page 342) says that they also use young conifer woods where there is dense undergrowth of other plants. Snowman (talk) 09:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I'll add that, in in my source too Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• A few days ago I changed sub-Sahara to Sub-Sahara, because of the capitalisation used on the wiki page on the topic. However, I have since seen it in a book as sub-Sahara. I am not sure which is correct or if both are correct. Snowman (talk) 09:50, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• My Chambers has lower case, I can't see any logic in capitalising "sub-", it's not even a noun (perhaps it's US?). I hadn't noticed the change, but I'll lc it unless you strongly object Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The atlas of the British Trust for Ornithology notes an absence of Garden Warblers from treeless fenland south of the Wash. Of course, this book only refers to the UK, but I wonder if its absence from fenland is a general phenomenon across its range. Snowman (talk) 09:50, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I think fenland here is a bit misleading, the area of Lincs/Norfolk you refer to hasn't been wetland for centuries, despite the name. It's agricultural land largely without trees or hedges, so there is little suitable habitat (often referred to as "agridesert" since monoculture, chemicals and lack of habitat mean that there is little other wildlife either) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I see. I did no know that. Snowman (talk) 21:28, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I wonder if it would be helpful to have a dedicated paragraph or section on migration. When does the migration each way start and end and how long does it take? I am trying to find out how long the birds have in the breeding grounds to consider the adaptation of usually having one brood per year. Snowman (talk) 13:30, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I've added the dates of arrival and departure to the breeding section. I'm not sure whether this helps resolve your query, since much of the post-breeding period will be spent fattening up for the long migration to Africa. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:46, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I think that helps, because it sounds like they only spend about 4 months (or a bit longer) in the "summer" ranges. I expect that the chicks will need to be in top condition and strong for the migration. Snowman (talk) 19:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, sub-Saharan winterers have to cross the Med as well as the desert, hence the increase in weight to give them the fuel to fly straight over these obstacles. Four months is actually quite leisurely, Common Swift arrives in the UK in May, one brood, mainly gone by mid-August Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:53, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I have some difficulty in interpreting sprite, because I have never heard this word before in ornithology and there are several meanings on the dab page. Snowman (talk) 10:30, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• changed to nymph Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The origin of woodwardi is not provided, but the origin for the other sub-species is. Snowman (talk) 10:30, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Will every one know what steel-grey is? At the present time steel-grey is a red link on the wiki. Would it be better to indicate the grey using other descriptive words? Snowman (talk) 10:30, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I would have thought most people would know what colour steel was, but changed to bluish-grey Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "pale lower mandible." Does this mean pale grey lower mandible? Snowman (talk) 10:30, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to paler grey Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "There are no plumage differences between the sexes, but juveniles are paler and greyer above, have a buff tone to the underparts and looser plumage." I presume that the small differences in colours of the male, female and juveniles are due to small differences in plumage colour. Snowman (talk) 10:30, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I can't see how that sentence can be taken as referring to anything other than plumage, but reordered to make even clearer Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I think that I misread the original and it was correct at it was, but I shall have a look at it again and try to think why I misread it; nevertheless, it looks better now. Snowman (talk) 17:22, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Is the male and female the same size and weight? Snowman (talk) 17:35, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• On average, yes. I would have given figures if there had been significant differences. Most European warblers have virtually no differences in size or appearance, although the Sylvia genus often has plumage diferences, including the Blackcap but not this species. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:16, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I have included the information about size as a known fact. Snowman (talk) 21:51, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Can the sub-species with authors be listed in the infobox? Snowman (talk) 21:51, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not a fan of this when there are a lot of ssp, but only two here, so done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:52, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• "One brood per year is normal,[29] although a few second broods are known from as far north as Southern Finland, where the summers are relatively short.[17]" A, B and C may be correct, but I do not follow the logic. Finland is in the north, so I would have thought that there would not be much summer time for a second brood. Snowman (talk) 10:21, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• If you want some OR, the summer days are very long in Finland, so the young can be stuffed with insects virtually around the clock, so feeding wouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure what action you are asking me to take. The statement is properly referenced, so I'm reluctant to remove it just because you don't find it convincing. Obviously I'll do so if you don't accept the source Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:38, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Does it mean that second broods more common in the north or that second broods also occur in the north despite the short summer there and in fewer numbers in the north. The article does not mention long days. Snowman (talk) 16:55, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• It just said "even in the north", presumably because it would be less expected there. I've removed that bit now, since it's disputed, and adding bits about the shortness of the summer and length of the day is making an originally factual statement look increasingly OR. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:46, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I have removed the bit about the birds intestines expanding, partly because it sounded vague and also because I have not got time to look at the sources. I would be happy to see it back in the article preferable with details of what parts of the intestine expand - I presume that it is mainly the smooth muscle. I would also be interested to learn if this is when skeletal muscle (ie wing muscles) become larger. I think that it might be better to minimise the detail to the essentials. Snowman (talk) 10:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• It seems odd to removed a referenced fact because there isn't sufficient detail. Now the fact doesn't exist in the article at all. I don't know of any accessible source which expands on this. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:38, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I have removed it (probably temporarily), because the high profile of mass of the intestine seemed to have the wrong emphasis. Also, " intestines expanding" could refer to them being filled with food. I will attempt to look for references when I have got some to find out if skeletal muscles also increase in weight and try to write a more coherent account, if this can be gleaned from references. At the present time the article says that the birds put on weight and increase adipose tissue. I do not know why the article previously only included mass of the intestine and hinted at fat stores without mentioning skeletal muscle mass as well. Snowman (talk) 16:55, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• OK Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:46, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Unfortunately I do not have access to the full papers of the abstracts that I have accessed, so I will not be able to do a re-write of parts of the article; nevertheless, what I have gleaned seems to indicate that organ weight and adipose tissue weight changes are complicated and dedicated section or paragraph to explain the topic could be added. It is interesting to wonder how much detail is needed for FA. When I first heard about non-carbohydrate sources for energy (gluconeogenesus) during bird migration a few years ago, I thought that it was fascinating and interesting from a biochemical point of view and that such rapid organ weight changes were a remarkable adaptation. I would think that a good summary is needed for the article or perhaps the very brief account in the article on the body building phase is enough as is it. I would discourage a sketchy approach using an emphasis on the weight of the intestines. I recall commenting on this topic on a previous FA, but I do not recall which bird it was nor what the consensus was reached then. Any comments? Snowman (talk) 14:25, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I've expanded a little using your new source. I would think the balance is about right for this article, which doesn't need to go into great detail on body changes, interesting though they may be Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:18, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I think that you have got the balance about right. Snowman (talk) 16:31, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I an concerned that sourcing the findings of Shirihai et al (2001) for organ weight reductions during migration appear to have been partly superseded by a 2005 paper by Bauchinger U, Wohlmann A, Biebach H. See Flexible remodeling of organ size during spring migration of the garden warbler (Sylvia borin) by Bauchinger U, Wohlmann A, Biebach H. (2005). It looks like the paper may have some more information on organ "plasticity" than the other papers and books sourced to write the article. Snowman (talk) 14:25, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I've moved the ref, since it refers to the return migration. I have JSTOR access, would you like to see the full text? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:18, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• How can I see the full text? Snowman (talk) 16:31, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Sorry, my error, I'm confusing the two biebach papers, it's the other one I can access, I could email you the link to my copy. I'll go back and sort out the two refs Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:45, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Biebachs sorted out now Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:51, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• and thanks for provisional support Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:54, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments by Yzx

• that breeds in most of Europe and into western Asia -- the "into" is grammatically incorrect

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• which often competes for territory -- should be "with which it often competes" or "which often competes with it"

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• blotched cream of white eggs -- should this be "or"?

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• These warblers maintain a similar mixed diet on their wintering grounds. -- the previous sentence indicates a switch from majority-insect to a majority-fruit diet, not a consistent "mixed diet"

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Should "domestic cat" be capitalized, for consistency in common names?

• Only bird species are capitalised, no other animal or plant project has a consistent policy. In bird facs we normally lower case all other species. Since it's done consistently, it's accepted practice even in FAs like Titchwell Marsh with all sorts of life forms Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was under the impression that the MoS favored consistency within an article. That's what it seems to say in Capital_letters#Animals.2C_plants.2C_and_other_organisms. -- Yzx (talk) 06:14, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, capped per your suggestion now Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:12, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• How can the species have been originally described as Motacilla atricapilla but not kept its specific name? This doesn't follow taxonomic rules

• It's nonsense, refers to the Blackcap, now removed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The Description section uses "race" and "species" to refer to "subspecies"; these terms are not interchangeable

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• It is often difficult to separate the species by sight away from the breeding grounds -- do they look more different during the breeding season?

• In the breeding areas you know what you expect to see (in the UK, the breeding birds are all borin) and a different bird might stand out. In Africa, a Garden Warbler could be either ssp, and without capturing it it's difficult to judge the subtle differences in an individual bird Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It may be better to say that the subspecies are hard to distinguish visually where they co-occur. -- Yzx (talk) 06:14, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

amended as suggested Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:12, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• but the Booted Warbler is similar in colour, although it is smaller, more delicately built and has a flesh-coloured bill -- should be separate sentence, as it's not a contrast

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• wintering from sub-Saharan Africa southwards to South Africa -- this phrase doesn't make sense, because South Africa is part of sub-Saharan Africa

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• but appear to be more directly across the Mediterranean -- should be "appear to lie more directly" or "appear to be more direct"

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• is due to subtle habitat preferences -- I assume "subtle differences in habitat preferences"?

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• between 0.3–1.2 m (1–4 ft) above -- should use "and" here rather than a dash

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• some bird nesting as late as July -- should be plural

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The clutch is typically four or five eggs (range 2–6), which are usually whitish or buff with grey, purple and brown blotches -- whether numbers are numerals or spelled out should be consistent within a sentence

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• a few second broods are known from as far north as Southern Finland -- I'm not clear on why the geographical range is relevant to this statement

• The summers are shorter in the north, so second broods might be less expected, clarified now Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The return south starts in mid-July -- "return" does not seem to be the appropriate word

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The typical lifespan in two years -- should be "is", also the form of numbers need to be consistent again

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• body mass of amount of deposited fat -- awkward

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The Garden Warbler is prized as a gastronomic delicacy -- where?

• Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• it was said "if it were the size of a pheasant, it would be worth an acre of land" -- who said this?

• Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, now added Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article looks comprehensive overall. -- Yzx (talk) 05:41, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for comments, all done I think Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• your two further comments addressed, thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:12, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article looks good. Changing to support. -- Yzx (talk) 07:27, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:21, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment - I have decided that any remaining issues can be resolved post FAC and will promote this candidate in a few minutes. Graham Colm (talk) 20:06, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Graham Colm (talk) 20:06, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by GrahamColm 10:01, 28 July 2013 (UTC) [10].[reply]

Vernon Sturdee[edit]

Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:48, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not the British admiral, but the Australian general. This article continues the series on Command in the South West Pacific. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:48, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This is a WikiCup nomination. The following nominators are WikiCup participants: Hawkeye7. To the nominator: if you do not intend to submit this article at the WikiCup, feel free to remove this notice. UcuchaBot (talk) 00:01, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Retrolord

1. "Now one of the Army's" Would it be possible to change now to something else? It seems a bit confusing, and almost sounds like you are saying this still applies today in 2013.

   Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:44, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

2. Could we switch the two pictures in the Island campaigns section? Then they would be nearer to the relevant info

   Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:44, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Let me know, ★★RetroLord★★ 07:02, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

• Quotes of >40 words should be either blockquoted or shortened (Ex. end of Between the wars)

  Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:44, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• FN9: publisher? Also, this and similar should use endashes in title.

  Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:44, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nikkimaria (talk) 15:45, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• More on sources: While it doesn't affect my support below, I don't think it's considered necessary to include OCLC when you have the ISBN, nor to use retrieval dates for references that are simply scans of published books like the official histories. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:06, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments:

• There is no mention of anything in the lead about the inter-war period.
• As a rank and thus not a proper noun, shouldn't admiral of the fleet be decapitalised?
  • Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• According to AWM records, the London Gazette and his digitalised service record, Alfred Hobart Sturdee was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George and Mentioned in Despatches a further few times during the First World War. You may want to add that in.
  • I cannot see that. Do you have a reference? Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • See his service record pages 17-20. It would appear the London Gazette incorrectly identified him as "Albert Hobart Sturdee", which the AWM subsequently recorded. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:04, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh. That explains it. Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:48, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• From my understanding, no man's land should be decapitalised.
  • Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Are any specifics available about his staff service on GHQ?
  • The only thing I have is that he worked in the Engineering Section. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Did Sturdee attempt to promote alternate policy to the Singapore strategy? Or attempt to alter such policy?
  • No. Officers that did, like Henry Douglas Wynter, were relieved. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Was the knighthood Sturdee was recommended for reduced to a mention due to the Labor Government's policy of not awarding knighthoods? Or another reason, if known?
  • Sort of. The ALP ban on knighthoods was not binding on the current Chifley government, but it was reluctant to award them. Forde put it to Cabinet, which decided that the 1944-45 campaigns were not important enough to warrant knighthoods. The have the Cabinet documents here somewhere. They were pretty mean-spirited, and even today would upset a few veterans. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fair enough. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:04, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• "Sturdee became Acting Commander in Chief" - I think "acting" in this instance should be decapitalised.
  • Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Are there any more details available on Sturdee's personal life, particularly between the wars and during retirement?
  • No, and the reason is in the last paragraph. Someone is going to have to go down and talk to his family. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I assumed as much, but thought I would ask anyway. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:04, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Is there any information on Sturdee's performance in the Second World War or his service as Chief of the General Staff post-war? As in, reception from historians?
  • The quote on the bottom paragraph of the East Indies campaign section sums up most of it. Do you want something on the final campaigns? Not nearly enough has been written about them. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you find anything you can add, that would be excellent. If not, than that isn't much of an issue. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:04, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 05:58, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My concerns have been addressed and I am confident that the article meets the FA criteria, so am happy to support. This is a well written, referenced and comprehensive article on a prominent Australian general. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 15:02, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - Dank (push to talk)

• "At Aitape, Stevens was tasked with pushing the Japanese back far enough to protect the airfields; but the 6th Division might be required for use elsewhere.": I'm not entirely clear what this is saying.
  • Added a bit more to try and make it clearer. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• "Sturdee therefore had to conduct three widely separated campaigns, the Aitape-Wewak campaign, the New Britain campaign and the Bougainville Campaign, juggling a number of contradictory requirements, and doing so with limited resources.": I think WP:Checklist#because is relevant to the "therefore", and the repetition is a little bit of a problem. You might try: Juggling contradictory requirements and limited resources, Sturdee had to conduct three widely separated campaigns: Aitape-Wewak, New Britain and Bougainville. - Dank (push to talk) 17:05, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't agree with that. It violates the Commonwealth Style Guide which specifically says not to do that. ("His car ran off the road, and he was killed." [He was set upon by a gang of bikies and clubbed to death]) And in this case, we really do know what they were thinking, because Blamey, Sturdee and Savige took extraordinary effort to lay down their reasoning in writing. Re-phrased as suggested. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• "Post war": Post-war, and headings should be nouns or noun phrases.
  • Changed to "later life: Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• "This laid the foundations": What, exactly, laid the foundations? I believe WP:Checklist#because is relevant here too ... that is, when one thing leads to another, it's better to be specific and to avoid saying that a set of things led to something else.
  • Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• "on a cadre basis": "cadre" is a bit overloaded with completely different meanings in different contexts. It might work, but consider using another word.
  • I had not realised this. In the Australian Army, we only use cadre in its original form, meaning "complement of commissioned officers of a regiment or the permanent skeleton establishment of a unit, around which the unit could be built if needed". I considered "skeleton", then decided to delete the phrase. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support on prose per new standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 17:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: I made a few minor tweaks, and am now happy this article meets the criteria. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:46, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]