Wikipedia:Peer review/Dodo/archive1

Dodo

This peer review discussion has been closed.
The article became a GA in 2007, but it was quite short back then, so I have expanded it much recently. Most undisputed info about the bird is now in the article, and very little is known about it apart from the old descriptions, so I have added many of those, since they are in the public domain. All important images of the bird, that is images thought to be based on live or stuffed specimens, and not simply copies of older images, have been included in the article. With the sources I have gathered, the article could go much further into the histories of the different specimens, paintings, theories and so on, but not much more can be said about the bird's biology, apart form maybe the complex history of classification. There's probably a lot to write about popular culture also. It could be nice to get it to FA, but I've never done that before, so I'd like some help to get on the right track of what would be appropriate to do with the article from here.

Thanks, FunkMonk (talk) 19:53, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Comments by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:42, 18 June 2012 (UTC) The layout, content, prose etc. are in general good. I thought that the most important way that the article could be improved was with regard to the referencing:

• The references need to be in a consistent form.

I added this[1], and apparently it'll summon a bot that fixes it... If not, I'll of course do it manually.

Just finished doing it manually, should fix the three points below.

• Dates should all be in the same style.

Done.

• Multiple authors need to be laid out consistently. (Current references 42, 45, 86 and 90 exemplify this point)

Done.

• I was told elsewhere that it was not correct to mix templated and untemplated citations.

I've used the cite doi template wherever I could, so I guess I'll go with templates...

• Some of the paragraphs do not have a citation at the end. I always try to end a paragraph with a cited statement. (I might be wrong here and this may not be a requirement.)

I usually do this, but for example when a sentence follows a quote, and the source for the quote and the sentence is the same, what should be done?

• Some facts have no citations, "No fossil remains of Dodo-like birds have ever been found on the island" for example.

This should be fixed now, please point out if I've missed something, or if something seems odd.

Some of the image captions could be improved, "The skeleton put together by Richard Owen from bones found in a marshy pool on Mauritius, Natural History Museum" for example makes it sound as if the Natural History Museum is on Mauritius.

Done.

Some other points:

• "According to most renditions, the Dodos had greyish or brownish plumage, with lighter primary feathers, and a tuft of curly light feathers high on its rear end." - I don't think "rendition" is the right word here and be careful with singulars and plurals.

Done.

• "One of the most detailed descriptions is by Sir Thomas Herbert from 1634, who had visited Mauritius" - Awkward - the clause should be by the noun to which it refers.

Done.

• "Painting of a Dodo head by Cornelis Saftleven from 1638, which is the last illustration of a Dodo not copied from earlier work" - Awkward.

Done.

• "According to this claim, the gaping nostrils often seen in Dodo paintings were thus depicted due to drying in stuffed specimens." - Awkward.

Done.

• "However, this account is problematical, since it also mentions the bird had three toes and no tongue, unlike Dodos, and it was most likely mingled with that of a cassowary." - This sentence is unclear.

Done.

• "Interaction with humans" This section has too many short paragraphs which makes it scrappy.

Done.

• "Though Mauritius had previously been visited by Arab vessels and Portuguese sailors, none of them left any known records of encounters with Dodos. The earliest known descriptions of the bird were made by Dutch travelers. However, few contemporary accounts are reliable, as many seem based on earlier accounts." - This paragraph is contradictory and unclear and the word "known" occurs twice in close proximity.

Done.

• "According to Julian Hume, the following part of this journal may be the first mention of Dodos, referred to as penguins, a word not used for penguins at the time" - Another awkward sentence that needs clarification.

Done.

• "Mascarene" - you could explain this name.

I've now inserted a lot more info about the island itself, its fauna, name, and what the Dutch used it for.

• "Two live specimens were taken to India in the 1600s according to Peter Mundy, and one of them likely depicted in an Indian painting." - This sentence is either ungrammatical or awkward, depending on how you read it.

Done.

• "Extinction" - The word "humans" is mentioned three times in the first couple of sentences.

Done.

• "After the castle was occupied by Denmark in 1702" - You presumably mean Danish troops.

Done.

• "Clark, explained his procedure to The Ibis:" - I realise that "The Ibis" does not describe a bird but perhaps you could clarify this, and wikilink it too.

Done.

• "A white bird on Réunion was first described as follows in 1625 by Mr. Tatton, the Chief Officer of Captain Castleton:" - Was the ship called the "Captain Castleton"?

The source wasn't clear about this, and it isn't really important, so I removed it.

• "The ibis was also reassigned to the genus Threskiornis, now combined with the specific epithet solitarius from the binomial Raphus solitarius, which was coined by Baron Edmund de Sélys-Longchamps in 1848 for the white dodo." - This sentence is too long and convoluted.

Done.

• "It rampant appears on the coat of arms of Mauritius." - Awkward.

Thanks for the thorough review! So I figure I'll address your points, and then perhaps make a comment to each of them in bold? Junglejill will be copy-editing. FunkMonk (talk) 18:03, 18 June 2012 (UTC)