Talk:Atlas of Australian Birds

GA on hold

This article will be put on hold (for 7 days) until these minor adjustments can be made :

1. Well written? OK (Just needs to work on the lead section)

2. Factually accurate? Pass

3. Broad in coverage? OK (don't know, waiting for answers)

4. Neutral point of view? Pass

5. Article stability? Pass

6. Images? Pass

Additional comments :

• To begin with, the lead is a tad short and missing the a period at the end.
• Are there any responses to these Atlasses? Do people buy them, is the company making money out of it.
• Are the atlassers paid workers? are they working for RAOU?
• Was there any attempt to make a repertory of birds in Australia prior to the frist published book? or before the '72 idea that they should do that?

The article sounds good and is well written, I was just wondering if it was broad enough and in such, I have placed questions here that one should answer to let me know how much that can be added in the article. For that time period, the article will be on hold. Good luck, Lincher 15:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I can respond to the above comments as follows:

• To begin with, the lead is a tad short and missing the a period at the end.

I have addressed this.

• Are there any responses to these Atlasses? Do people buy them, is the company making money out of it.

Yes, people do buy them. The first atlas book is out of print. The second is available in many bookshops. There is an attempt to cover the costs of publishing the books by sales but the RAOU is a not-for-profit organisation. While the books are probably the most visible part of the project to the public, in fact the most important product is the database. Various organisations such as environmental consultancies and local government authorities, purchase data from the database, and this helps support ongoing database maintenance.

• Are the atlassers paid workers? are they working for RAOU?

The atlassers (the people who did the bird surveys) are all volunteers. Many are members of the RAOU and other bird groups, but many are not and do it because they enjoy atlassing and feel that they are making a contribution to environmental conservation. The number of RAOU staff involved in coordinating the project at its peak and working on the database was never high.

• Was there any attempt to make a repertory of birds in Australia prior to the frist published book? or before the '72 idea that they should do that?

Essentially not. There were attempts at producing distribution maps for particular species, based on published and unpublished records, but these were unsatisfactory as much of the remoter area of Australia had not been surveyed for birds at all. The Atlas project was the first to get people to go out and get coverage of the whole continent, and preferably covering the different seasons of the year as well. Maias 01:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Being a descendant of a deceased atlasser I would consider the article to be a fair and reasonable encyclopedia article on the issue SatuSuro 01:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be neat if this article showed one of the maps (there's a good fair use argumnet for using one) since the way they have collected and presented the data is (at least as far as I'm aware) pretty unique. --Peta 04:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Good suugestion. In fact the current illustration (of the front cover of the second atlas book) does show the map (at the bottom right of the image) of the distribution of the Budgerigar (the bird illustrated), though it is not easy to see the red dots on the map against the reddish colour of the background. Maias 05:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that in addition to a map, an more detailed on how the data was collected would help highlight how and why this is a really in depth and interesting publication. --Peta 07:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Lead section

I have changed the lead section so it would be in accordance with WP:LEAD in summarizing the article to come and not providing original material. Please feel free to copyedit it and modify it until it meets your view of what a lead should be like. You can revert it back to the one you created but that one didn't meet the requirements requested by GA. Lincher 15:40, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

GA passed

Resquested comments have been taken into consideration and I now consider the article GA for it meets the GA requirements. Nice work, Lincher 11:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Move

This page should not have been moved to a title which includes the definite article. It is primarily about an ongoing database project which happens to have produced two books in the course of its activities. The books have been published and are rightfully included in the asrticle as part of it, but the project continues and is larger and more significant than the books. Maias (talk) 23:18, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

See this webpage, where "The ..." is included in the title. This is a webpage on the projects own website, so I presume that it is correct. Snowman (talk) 14:17, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

See also in the underlying paragraph where it refers to "the Atlas" it does not capitalise the definite article. Maias (talk) 22:57, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

... but "bring the Atlas online" is not using the full name there. I think that using "The" in the heading "The Atlas of Australian Birds" is deliberate, and this contrasts with the next heading which is "Atlas database statistics". I also think that the titles of the two books "The Atlas of Australian Birds", "The New Atlas of Australian Birds", and the title of the project would be expected to be consistent and all start with "The". I have moved the page to "The Atlas of Australian Birds". Snowman (talk) 23:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

With reference to the latest Alas Newsletter here the title and subtitle make it clear that "Atlas of Australian Birds" is the project name with the definite article only appended where grammatically necessary. Maias (talk) 23:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be both options available on the internet in websites associated with the atlas. The name sees clear in the newsletter and its logo, which does not have "The". Snowman (talk) 12:09, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Is this article at GA level at this time?

I think that this article needs some maintenance if it is to remain a GA and avoid a GAR. I have listed some possible problems for discussion. I think that this article does not satisfy several GA criteria: Snowman (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

• 1b. I think it likely that there would be a relevant infobox - perhaps the infobox for websites. The layout may require an extra early section explaining the project holistically followed by sections on the two books and the database. Snowman (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
• 2b. Quite a lot of specific information (and therefore likely to be challenged) is not sourced. Snowman (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
• 3b. It seems to me that there is a relevant information that is not in the article. Examples probably include lack of information about: Birdata, WildlifeLink program, the huge collaborative nature of the project. Snowman (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

GAR

Atlas of Australian Birds

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: delisted It appears that there are outstabnding problems with this article. The prose is poor, some strange word choices ("atlassers"), there is apparently dated material (Ongoing developments), there is little or no coverage of the book(s) themselves, some coverage of Birds Australia would be useful, the article is sourced only to primary sources. The absence of an infobox is not a consideration for GA status. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:48, 23 December 2011 (UTC).

• 1b. I think it likely that there would be a relevant infobox - perhaps the infobox for websites. The layout may require an extra early section explaining the project holistically followed by sections on the two books and the database. Snowman (talk) 22:45, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
• 2b. Quite a lot of specific information (and therefore likely to be challenged) is not sourced. Snowman (talk) 22:45, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
• 3b. It seems to me that there is a relevant information that is not in the article. Examples probably include lack of information about: Birdata, WildlifeLink program, the huge collaborative nature of the project. Snowman (talk) 22:45, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

File:The New Atlas of Australian Birds.jpg is used as a thumbnail but has no caption. 6a. It claims Fair Use and so should include who the copyright holder is (likely the publisher). I disagree that the presence/absence of an infobox is a GA criteria, but relevant to 1b I think the "Ongoing developments" section violates Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Relative time references (The Atlas is now in its ongoing phase and is now accepting...) -maclean (talk) 21:37, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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