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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Paleolithic-style diet

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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 00:36, 5 March 2008.

Paleolithic-style diet edit

Check external links

Self-nominator Phenylalanine (talk) 02:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • oppose Lists.... to start Rankun (talk) 03:12, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How would you propose the content in lists be reorganized? In my eyes, this information cannot really be presented in another clear manner, as the alternative seems to be long, ungainly sentences. Kakofonous (talk) 03:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support author has addressed all of my concerns Rankun (talk) 23:38, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A table could help. Cheers. Trance addict 04:50, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I added tables. I hope it's ok. --Phenylalanine (talk) 13:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm removing the tables. They take way too much place and they just don't look good (see [1]). --Phenylalanine (talk) 14:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I shortened the bullet lists a bit. --Phenylalanine (talk) 14:55, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose Although the article is well-balanced the Lead is not, with just a couple of sentences at the end giving a contrary view; the tone of this section comes across as prescriptive and advocatory. This may have arisen because the Lead is too long, or is it missing some qualifiers such as controversial, thought by some to be and so forth. I see no problems with the body of the article; it is well written and cited and most importantly, IMHO, it is interesting. I'll watch this space and revise my opinion accordingly should future edits address my concerns.--GrahamColmTalk 11:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I edited the lead paragraphs as per your suggestions. Thanks! --Phenylalanine (talk) 16:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support The Lead is much better and now reflects a well-balanced, informative and neutral article. --GrahamColmTalk 16:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC) (PS. you were right about the tables, they didn't add anything). Best wishes. Graham.[reply]
  • (Belated) Support. As the person that passed this article as a GA (see talk page) a little while ago, and having seen it get even better since I passed it, I definitely think this article is of FA quality. Kakofonous (talk) 21:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Comments, a good start and well-written, but some issues need to be addressed:
    • When I finished the lead, I felt the question of "who" was not covered. Who invented and/or popularized this diet? Worth mentioning in the lead.
      • I added information in the lead paragraphs on the history and the advocates of this dietary approach. --Phenylalanine (talk) 00:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've now made it through Theory and History, and still no "who" except the opinions of some professors. Am I to presume those are the inventors? The History section has passive voice sentences that obscure the subject when the subject is definitely of interest. "One of the first suggestions ... was made in a book published in 1975." Made by whom? "In 1985, a key paper on Paleolithic nutrition was published..." Written by whom? "This was followed by a book..." See where this is going? Yes the reader can follow the footnotes... but they don't unless they are verifying something. Even then, they don't know if the source cited is primary or secondary.
      • I rearranged the sections so that the history section comes first in the article, and I clarified who the proponents are. --Phenylalanine (talk) 01:37, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The organization of the "Medical research" heading seems a bit odd to me. In that heading, I was also looking for the research that refutes the diet. I know there is plenty of it later on, but surely some of it is medical research? Consider grouping "for and against" items together.
      • I rearranged the sections to make it clear that the "medical research" section discuses the research in the context of the theory, i.e. from the point of view of the proponents of the diet, how the research is believed to support the theory. --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:36, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I changed the section heading to "Interpretation of medical research" and edited the text accordingly. --Phenylalanine (talk) 08:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • The reasons why I think the medical research section should be separate from the criticism are the following:
      • "The appropriate way to structure criticism may depend on the style of the article. In articles on people, places, things, etc., it can be very useful to integrate criticism into the article. In articles whose subjects are themselves points of view, such as philosophies (Idealism, Materialism, Existentialism, etc.), political outlooks Left-wing politics, Right-wing politics, etc.), religions (Judaism, Christianity, Atheism, etc.), intermingling an explanation of the article's subject with criticism of that subject can sometimes result in confusion about what adherents of the point of view believe and what critics hold. To avoid this confusion, it can be useful to first explain the point of view clearly and succinctly (including disagreements among schools or denominations), and then explain the point of view of critics of the outlook." Wikipedia:Criticism
      • "Criticism that is integrated into the article should not disrupt the article or section's flow. For example a section entitled "Early success" should not contain one paragraph describing the success of the topic and three paragraphs qualifying or denying that success. This is often why separate criticism sections are created." Wikipedia:Criticism --Phenylalanine (talk) 14:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • As with other modern dietary trends like Atkins, etc, I would expect a heading on how this diet is being propagated in popular culture. Are people writing books named, Lose 50 Pounds Fast with Paleolithic Diet!!! and such? Infomercials? I'm not impugning the diet or comparing it to Atkins, but there have got to be people out there trying to make a buck on this.
      • It appears that there are a number of diet books with a similar "evolutionary" theme (see [2] and [3]), but most are not strictly "paleo" (based on amazon reviews). The authors mentioned in the article are the ones that seem to be the most notable advocates of "Paleolithic diets" based on the press coverage of the diet (ses "further reading" section). I haven't read the other diet books and I hesitate to mention them without some media coverage. --Phenylalanine (talk) 22:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I moved the links from the "see also" section to the "History" section, as they deal with the history of the diet. --Phenylalanine (talk) 08:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • In the lists of foods, you don't put commas at the end of list items. Ditto for the periods on the last items.
    • There are hyphens throughout the article where there should be en dashes, and at least one en dash that should be an em dash. Check WP:DASH.
      • I looked through and corrected the en -> em dash problem, but could not find hyphen problems. All of the hyphen-uses (ahem) I could find were used to combine words. The common hyphen problem (namely using hyphens for page ranges) didn't seem to be present. Could you elaborate on what you found? Kakofonous (talk) 04:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • It was in the Intake section. The percentage ranges had hyphens. I just went ahead and changed them to en dashes. --Laser brain (talk) 15:40, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I hate to say it, but you have a dish pictured at the top of the article that typically uses bread or bread crumbs in its sauce, which I think is contrary to the diet you are writing about.
      • I indicated in the caption that the stew is to be served without bread. --Phenylalanine (talk) 21:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The food pyramid diagram is not very usable. As it appears in the article, the captions are illegible. Even at full size, it is hard to read. I think readers should not have to click the image to read the captions - they should be clear in the article.
      • I changed the food pyramid image. Perhaps this one is better? (I think the food group images speak for themselves, don't you think?) --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm just not sure about the images of the cookfire and the hunter-gatherer guy. They seem gratuitous. --Laser brain (talk) 04:29, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
MoS notes, resolved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:14, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notes. Should some of the names in the lead capitalized and others not? "Overview" is rarely a good heading; is there any reason that sub-heading can't just be dropped? Please review WP:PUNC throughout (example: many of the so-called "diseases of civilization," ... ). There is incorrect use of WP:ITALICS in the "Nutritional factors" section. In that same section, there is no use of WP:NBSP, so this should be reviewed throughout. There's strange straggling wording on the image caption in "Criticism of evolutionary logic" about white bread. See also should be reviewed and minimized per WP:GTL. Considering the issues that I found on a quick pass, perhaps you can request Epbr123 (talk · contribs) or Karanacs (talk · contribs) to run through. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:28, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the suggestions! I don't understand your first question though. --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:36, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Just asking you to doublecheck all the capitalizations; sometimes people inadvertently wikilink articles including the cap in the wikilink when it might not be intended. Please advise when done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • I requested some help on these issues. I'll let you know when I'm done. Cheers! --Phenylalanine (talk) 13:53, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Status? Several days since last comment, where does this stand? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • I asked for help, but nothing came of it. I've addressed the issues you've pointed out to the best of my abilities. Thanks! --Phenylalanine (talk) 18:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I got the request to take a look at this article and Sandy also asked me to verify the things she'd found. I'll try to get to this tonight or first thing in the morning - it sounds like an interesting subject. Karanacs (talk) 21:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose for now. I think the article has issues that need to be addressed, but I don't think it is awful. I haven't finished reading it yet (and won't be able to until tomorrow), but here is the first half of my comments.
    • The first sentence in the lead is incredibly long. I would split this into two sentences.
    • Watch for redundancies in the prose. For example, "In support of Paleolithic-style diets, advocates argue " -> critics would not be arguring in support of the diets, so you could simplify to "Advocates argue"; second example: "On the other hand, critics of this " -> Critics are naturally at the opposite end of advocates, so you don't need to specify further.
    • All of the images are right-aligned. This should be varied a bit so that it draws the eye in more.
    • I think the history section should not start with passive voice. This is the main focus of the article and should use more active voice to be more compelling...."Gastroenterologist Walter L. Voegtlin was one of the first to suggest...."
    • The history section has three very short paragraphs. I would suggest these be combined into one.
    • "In recent years"...as we don't know when the sentence was written, it's unclear when "recent" was.
    • It is jarring to the eye to see sections that contain only a list. I'm not sure what the best way would be to redesign the Permitted and Restricted foods sections, but this just appears off, especially since the list entries can be long.
    • Was it known whether the Paleolithic people cooked their food? I think it would be worth noting whether the diet is actually following Paleolithic practice there or not.
    • Are there any statistics on how many people follow this type of diet? Is it primarily a US fad, or is it popular in other parts of the world?
      • I can't say for sure, but I don't think there are any statistics. My best guess is that it's most popular in the US, then in Europe. If I find any hard evidence, I'll certainly indicate it in the article. --Phenylalanine (talk) 03:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "are believed to have fundamentally altered several key nutritional characteristics of Paleolithic diets" - I question this wording. The new foods did not change the characteristics of Paleolithic diets (we weren't in Paleolithic time anymore, right?0, but the diet of people changed.
    • The external links section needs to be trimmed. I'd keep the list of full-text articles and lose the rest.
      • Partially done. I removed one link (this one) but thought the others looked useful. Kakofonous (talk) 04:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Done. I kept the list of full-text articles and removed the rest. --Phenylalanine (talk) 11:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The See Also section needs to be trimmed as well. If the researchers have published important enough research, they should either be named in the article or as one of the sources in the references section. (Melvin Konner's article doesn't even mention the diet.). I also think that Evolutionary psychology does not need to be linked here

Karanacs (talk) 03:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As for Sandy's concerns, the lead capitalization looks fine to me, and the italics issue appears to be resolved. I agree that the "(white bread)" part of the caption needs to be removed; it doesn't add anything to the caption. Karanacs (talk) 03:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed a few places where quotations were not immediately followed by a citation. Although I assume they were covered by the next citation, there should always be one immediately after the quote too. Karanacs (talk) 17:15, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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