Talk:Ecosystem/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk · contribs) 23:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Beginning review

Hi! Just wanted you to know that I'll be taking on this review. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 23:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

First read comments

Quickfail Criteria

Description	Rating
The article completely lacks reliable sources.	OK
The topic is treated in an obviously non-neutral way.	OK
There are cleanup banners that are obviously still valid	OK
The article is or has been the subject of ongoing or recent, unresolved edit wars.	OK
The article specifically concerns a rapidly unfolding current event with a definite endpoint.	OK
The article contains significant close paraphrasing or copyright violations.	OK

I located several of your sources in the university library. Detailed review will begin after I've had a chance to check them out and to skim them over. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 04:46, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Detailed review

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

I've spent the past few days skimming the materials that I got from the university library. Mostly I focused on Chapin et al. 2011, since I saw that the 2002 edition of their textbook was a major resource for you. But I also read through the Christensen et al. report and skimmed through other textbooks not on your list.

Being an old fogey, I'm rather amazed at the paradigm shifts that have occurred even in such things as the old succession concept that I learned 40+ years ago. The Odum brothers' use of radiotracers was state-of-the-art when I was learning this stuff in school. How far we've gone! I'm struck by the advances in experimental methods. How do we know what we know? How about paleoecological studies? Computer modeling? Satellite remote sensing? When I learned this stuff 40+ years ago, all we learned about were patterns. Now the emphasis is on processes.

Ecosystems is a huge topic, far too big a subject to cover adequately in a 52,000 character essay, or one even double the current size. There are two basic approaches to attempting to cover such a huge subject in an article that can be read in 15–25 minutes. (1) Provide idiosyncratic coverage in significant detail of just the most important topics, knowing that you're going to miss a lot that people would want to learn. (2) Write the article mostly as a directed set of links. This is the "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium" approach to writing a Wikipedia article.

Your article clearly adopts the second approach.

Comparing the subjects covered in your article with Chapin et al. (2011), Smith and Smith (2012), and a couple of other texts that I got from the university library, I see that you unavoidably missed a lot of important stuff. I say "unavoidably" because that's just how big this subject is, even taking the approach that you've adopted.

It would be unfair of me to ask you to fix everything, since that would entail writing at least a 200,000 character article. But I can ask you to fix a couple of topics for the GA.

History and development Treatment in this section is very inadequate. You have no dates, and describe nothing after the mid to late 60's. Modern understanding and methods of research have changed ENORMOUSLY in the last several decades since I studied this stuff in school.

Ecosystem processes Late in his life, Jenny recognized human activity as a sixth state factor, but you only mention human activity in the last two sentences? Human-induced ecosystem change is a huge factor in ecosystem processes.

Right now the article stands as about 52,000 characters. To fix these two issues, the article should grow to be maybe, say, around 60,000 characters?

Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 23:42, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Need help?

Is there any assistance that I provide to help you bring this article to GA? For instance, I live near a medium-sized university, so if there are any journal articles that you need, I can check if they are available and if so, can see about sending electronic copies to you. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 01:24, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Reluctant failure

No effort whatsoever has been made to address any of the issues that I have raised. Indeed, another editor besides myself felt the History section to be so poor, that on July 9, he/she actually blanked it – not exactly a good way of dealing with the issue (the blank was reverted). Regardless, I have no choice but to fail the article. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 12:05, 9 July 2012 (UTC)