Talk:St. Croix macaw/GA1

GA Review

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• Nominated by User:KimvdLinde at 03:26, 31 December 2010 - nominated here.

Reviewer: —focus 15:24, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I suppose I'll review this article. It caught my attention because of the note on the GAN page. Are you sure you can't expand it any more? If not, could you add a sentence or two introduction, and make the rest of it a section? That might look better. —focus 15:24, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I just read through it, and I can't find anything else wrong, apart from (possibly) comprehensiveness. I looked at ref 3, and it seems there's a lot of research there. Why can't you put some of those details in the article? Otherwise, it meets the GA criteria. —focus 15:32, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

• I guess that this article has been nominated following a misunderstanding about the criteria for GA. There is not enough information about this bird known, so this article should not have been submitted for GA. I think that the article certainly does not meet GA criteria. It is almost inevitable that not much will ever be know about this long since extinct parrot, so I think that this nominations should rejected (if it stays in its short current state - which is almost inevitable in the foreseeable decades) by the reviewer or withdrawn by the nominator. The best that could be said about this article is that it is "audited article of limited subject matter"; see 3c at Wikipedia:Featured topic criteria. Snowman (talk) 15:50, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I see, that makes sense. I ment that it meets the GA criteria in prose, not comprehensiveness. Under that argument, I suppose I'll fail the article. —focus 16:12, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

• Article closed as fail GA at 16:13 1 January 2011; see reviewers closing edit. Edits below the line were made after GA1 was closed. Snowman (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

============================================== GA closed 16:13 1 January 2011

• This article will never be "Broad in its coverage"; see 3a Wikipedia:Good article criteria. From only a few bones that have been found and with extremely unlikely future significant advances, this article will almost certainly never be able to provide much information about this parrot - it will probably never be known what colour its feathers were, size of parrot, range, nesting, diet, social behaviour, taxonomy, ancestry, and so on. There may be a lot known about some extinct large dinosaurs where numerous bones and teeth have been found including complete skeletons, but not about this extinct parrot. Some of the key references are primary (see Wikipedia:PRIMARY#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources), which are not always entirely satisfactory for wiki articles, and, as far as I am aware, the main paper sourced has not had a published review. I invite the nominator to withdraw the nomination, because I think that the nominator has probably misunderstood the GA criteria. If the nomination is not withdrawn, I think that the article is a barn-door fail GA. Snowman (talk) 16:31, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Strike added, because GA had already failed at that juncture - GA fail template is put on talk page and GA1 review is on subpage - editing on different pages is confusing. Snowman (talk) 19:23, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Focus, I think Snowmanradio is misapplying the criteria. This is not a featured article candidate, so those rules are irrelevant and should not be used to judge this article. For that reason, I lets cover them:

1. Well-written:

(a) the prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and

I think the article meets this criterion.

(b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

I think focus is right that this article can be partitioned. Will do that.

2. Factually accurate and verifiable:

   (a) it provides references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout;

   Pass.

   (b) it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines and

   Everything is cited appropriately. Of the cited works, two are tertiary sources (Forshaw and Williams), two are primary sources (Wetmore articles), and Olsen is a mix between secondary (review aspects in the introduction and discussion) and primary (describing new material). Most information in the article is based on secondary and tertiary material with appropriate use of primary sources.

   (c) it contains no original research.

   Pass.

3. Broad in its coverage:

   (a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and

   First of all, being comprehensive is not the same as having a certain length. As Snowmanradio admits, this article covers whet we know. Hence, it is comprehensive. This point is covered here in more detail: "Point A means that the "main aspects" of the topic, according to reliable sources, should each be "addressed" in the article;" It is crucial to consider that the article should be comprehensive based on what reliable sources say, not on what could or should be known but is not yet or never will be present in reliable sources.

   (b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

   Definitely.

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias.

   Pass.

5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

   Pass.

6. Illustrated, if possible, by images:

   (a) images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content.

   I made the only image, and released it. So no issues there.

   (b) images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

   pass.

So, contrary to the assertions of snowmanradio, this article meets the GA criteria. I see that the nomination has been failed already, without providing me time to respond, which I think is not really courteous.

Snowmanradio's contention is that the article is not comprehensive based on his reading of Broad in its coverage. The question here is, relative to what? Relative to the amount of knowledge that we have about for example extant macaws? Or relative to what we actually know about this topic? This article is comprehensive with regard to what is known in reliable sources, not with regard to what could or should be present in reliable sources. As the good article criteria do not have a prose size criterion like Did you know? articles, failing this article on what should or could be know or because it is short is not based on the GA criteria. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:34, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

• It could look like the review made by User KimvdLinde after the official GA review is another GA review; however, the official review has finished with an appropriate fail GA. I was not applying FT criteria to this article. I had linked certain FT pages as examples where there is discussion about articles with inadequate known content for the benefit of the review. We had discussed topics with little information available at WP Birds at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Birds/Assessment#absolute_or_relative_length_in_quality_scale?. I think that the general outcome of the discussion was that WP Birds will keep to the traditional understanding of article grading. Snowman (talk) 18:21, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm not really sure what to do here, so I'm stepping out. If the consensus is that it meets the GA criteria, please renominate it, but as it stands I have failed the article due to comprehensiveness. —focus 18:37, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

• Having failed GA by the reviewer owing to concerns about comprehensiveness, the nominator might like to ask for a Wikipedia:Peer review to determine what level of detail is appropriate for the topic; nevertheless, I very much doubt if this will question the appropriateness of the GA fail. Snowman (talk) 18:53, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
• Focus, I will deal with the issues you raised first and renominate the article after that. The main suggestion was that I would incorporate more primary source information, which I can do. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:57, 1 January 2011 (UTC)