Talk:Northern voalavo

No picture of the animal itself???

How did this get to become a featured article without any picture of the animal itself? Is the entire species copyrighted or something? This somehow passed the FAN image review in 2011, but I doubt it would pass in 2021 and I'm not sure how it passed the TFAR with such a severe underillustration problem. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:59, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

This surprised me too, especially because of the species' least concern conservation status. My guess as to why this doesn't have an image is this winning combination: it's a small,(1) nocturnal(2) animal on Madagascar(3) which is very subtly different from the eastern voalavo (4). Still surprising to see both this and eastern voalavo reach featured and good article status, respectively, without an actual image of either animal. The latter has been a good article for a decade too, though that one's probably even more difficult to photograph because it's endangered. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 03:01, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I also agree that this should have had an image before becoming featured on the main page, obviously I symphatize with it being difficult to get one, but as it stands this also means that the coverage, at least in my mind, isn't complete. If photographs do not exist, I imagine a drawing would also suffice in its place. Ichthyovenator (talk) 12:58, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Sadly it is another example of content which does not show Wikipedia at its best getting on to the front page as a featured article. Greenshed (talk) 14:16, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Courtesy pinging @WP:TFA coordinators ; I can't find the TFAR nomination for this article (are those archived anywhere?), but the concerns here may be something to have in mind in the future. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:35, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

There was no nomination. I selected it from among the biology articles that had not yet run on the main page as TFA scheduling co-ordinator for March. If you wish to propose additional eligibility criteria, you are free to do so, but the article had passed FA, was by an experienced FA editor, had not deteriorated, and the plan to use it as TFA was disclosed to the community a month ago. While we do avoid having FAs that have deteriorated to a poor state run on the main page, I don't think, as things stand, we can second-guess FAC on whether an article should have passed. The image use criteria of WP:WIAFA are more or less the same now as they were then.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:59, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

@Wehwalt: Thanks for the explanation. Not second-guessing FAC sounds like a good principle, but my rough understanding is that FAC used to be less strict and that anything more than a few years old might not necessarily live up to current standards. I don't know FAC well enough to say with confidence how this should've fared on the illustration retirement, but it seems bad to let an animal article pass without a picture of said animal. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 12:51, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Sdkb, I only schedule a third of articles, and I don't plan to stay a coordinator forever, so I can't speak for TFA as a whole. But I suspect that because I prefer to avoid controversy and have TFA run under the radar, I won't schedule another such.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:10, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Critically endangered, but no concern?

The article said it's of "least concern." But the taxobox says "critically endangered." Which is it? Uporządnicki (talk) 13:09, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Least concern: this was vandalism present for 12 minutes (including the time the above post was made). — Bilorv (talk) 13:54, 6 March 2021 (UTC)