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GA Review

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: FunkMonk (talk · contribs) 10:11, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hi, before this can be properly reviewed, it seems you may have to structure it closer to other promoted bird articles. For example, where is the taxonomy section, and why is the description section so short? It hardly says anything about its plumage pattern, which should be a must. And you have two distribution sections? Also, there are at least two paragraphs that end without citations. These are rather serious problems, but instead of quick-failing this, let's see if we can get something from it. I see you stated on the talk page that you haven't really done much writing on this, so do you feel familiar enough with the relevant literature to follow through with this? FunkMonk (talk) 10:11, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for taking this on, it's my first GA nomination and there's a lot about these reviews that I'm not really familiar with. As for this article I did compare it with other GA bird articles, for example American crow, and thought that it was up to standard in comparison. However I do see now that it's missing a detailed taxonomy, and I hadn't noticed before that there are two distribution sections, but I think I can fix both, as well as the missing references. I don't have access to all of the sources listed but if you don't mind giving me a day or two I'll see what I can come up with. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds nice, the first one is always a bit harder. That crow article was passed nine years ago, though, I'm not sure if it would pass that easily today. Comprehensiveness is one of the criteria, after all. FunkMonk (talk) 13:23, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(butting in) I have reorganized it like other bird articles, but we need more information for the taxonomic history. I am not really that familiar with this species but have started the section. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:29, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not "butting in", any help is of course welcome. I've done some work expanding the taxonomy and description. I've never actually written a taxonomy before so I hope I'm doing it right, this is a member of a very small genus in a challenging family. For vocalizations I tried to find a decent audio file available under a free license but didn't come up with one, but I think that it's probably okay for a good article. There's at least one section left that's missing a source and I'm pretty sure I can back it up, but I have to put this away for the night. Thanks for your help and patience! Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 02:10, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, here's where I'm at with this. I'm having difficulty coming up with a source for the section on the birds inhabiting various specific types of spruce forest, I think I know where it is but it's behind a paywall. This was added years ago as part of a large edit by Dan Strickland, here, in which he cited a number of his own studies but did not provide inline links. This section in particular has sat completely untouched since that time. I did find one of Strickland's later studies, which happens to be the 2006 study referred to in the conservation section further down the page (I'll cite it directly in a moment), located here. In it, Strickland refers to one of his earlier studies as a citation for the sentence, "Grey jays occupy permanent, group-held territories in boreal and subalpine forests of North America." That 1993 study is the one that I believe is behind the paywall on the Birds of North America website here and which I believe would serve as reference for this paragraph, but I can't verify it. The 1993 study is already cited inline numerous times in the article, so I just added another ref to it at the end of the paragraph. I'm not sure if this is acceptable but it's the best I can come up with at the moment.
I also added a number of other references to information that was unreferenced or poorly referenced. With that I think the article is ready to proceed with review (pinging FunkMonk just in case). Let me know what you think. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:55, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think that will suffice, but if other paywall papers are needed, you can ask here:[1] I'll give the article a look tomorrow, but since you're already "here", Casliber, would you mind giving this a second opinion at some stage? Especially since it is a first time nomination. First thing I notice in the article is that there are a lot of standalone sentences. Could these be grouped together in larger paragraphs where this makes sense? The "additional photos" section should also be cut, Wikipedia articles should not have galleries unless there is a good reason for it. FunkMonk (talk) 21:20, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, just one more set of edits, now I'm going to leave it for your review. I reworded a paragraph under "cultural significance" which appeared that parts might have been copied improperly from a couple of different sources, trimmed two of the "further reading" articles which are already being used as references, and removed the gallery after verifying that the images are on Commons and properly categorized so they can be accessed from the media link. Thanks again! Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:12, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "are thought to have diverged from their Old World relatives and crossed Beringia into North America." Any info on when?
  • You could spell out the names of people mentioned in the text.
  • I see at least one caption where jay is capitalised, if there are more places, this should be changed.
  • You should give authorities and dates for the listed subspecies.
  • There are many geographical areas listed in the text that should be linked. Clade should also be linked. I see other terms that could be linked at first mention.
  • Clade was done by Cas liber a few days ago, and I've tried to link first occurrences for specific geographic locations where we have articles or redirects. I didn't link, for example, cases where a broad location (e.g. Quebec) is followed by more specific locations in parentheses (e.g. Quebec "(Mingan and Blanc-Sablon)"). Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 21:38, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • You should mention it is a corvid under taxonomy.
added Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:27, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "where there is a strong presence of one or more of black spruce" The bolded of seems unnecessary.
Reworded. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:23, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Citations are not needed in the intro, but make sure there is no info there not found in the article body.
Did some work on this yesterday, the refs have been moved from the lede to the "cultural significance" section, and that section expanded slightly to ensure the info previously cited in the lede is cited in the body. I'm not sure if "gray jay" needs to appear in the intro, thoughts? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:23, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • More to come as I read the article.
  • "The benefits of allofeeding" I think it is a bit late in the paragraph to use this term for something that is explained before. Technical terms should be used before going into detail about them.
  • "The oldest known female grey jay was 16 years old, and one male was at least 14 years old" Captive or wild?
  • Can't say, this is the study that's behind a paywall. However, the Cornell "All About Birds" site previously referenced and supposedly based on that study gives 17 years for a wild-banded bird, so I've replaced the text. Generally speaking, I don't believe these birds are regularly kept captive, as corvids generally take poorly to captivity. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 21:38, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see there is no description in the intro, among other things. As stated before, the intro should be a summary of the entire article.
I added one Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:10, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Occasionally, grey jays eat live prey. Lescher and Lescher[28] witnessed a grey jay kill an unidentified, live small rodent" Considering the context, the bolded "live" is very redundant.
Fixed. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Grey jays do not hammer food with their bill as do other jays" But you stated earlier they are not related to other "jays"? What makes a "jay" anyway?
This is difficult. The grey jays (genus Perisoreus) are a distinct group from "other jays" (e.g. Garrulus, Cyanocitta, Cyanocorax etc.) within the corvids, but the relationships between these groups is uncertain: as one of Cas Liber's edits notes, Perisoreus is more closely related to Cyanopica, a group commonly known as magpies, and those two groups are likely yet another distinct group from the groups that are jays and the groups that are magpies and the groups that are crows, for example. It's the same inaccessible source again so it's difficult to see what the author intended, but AllAboutBirds has similar text which compares specifically to the blue jay. I can't tell if hammering is something that all jays are thought to do or if that's a behaviour unique to blue jays, and either way I'm not sure if text contrasting the grey jay's behaviour to "other jays" is warranted anyway. However, the blue jay is a well-known bird and the source saw fit to do so, so I've left it in but restated the sentence. I could easily be persuaded that this should come out instead. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems the nest predation and caching sections would be sub-sections of the feeding section, or otherwise part of it?
See below. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Nest predation section strikes me as overly detailed compared to the rest of the text (I found it hard to read), almost like something straight from a scientific paper, when it seems it could be easily summarised to become more understandable.
I agree, the separate "nest predation" section was very technical and specific. I've rolled it up into a summary and integrated it into the Feeding section. I left Caching separate and mostly as-is, because the grey jay's caching behaviour seems to be fairly notably unique, and summarizing this while maintaining its importance would have made the resulting Feeding section very long. Instead I reorganized the whole section to remove duplicated information (text about forming a bolus and preferred caching sites was repeated, for example) and removed the discussion of capitalizing on human food sources to the "relationship with humans" section where there was already similar text. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "sites of fisher (Martes pennanti) and American marten (Martes americana).[47] Red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) eat grey jay eggs." Is it normal practice to use singular in these cases?
I believe fisher and marten are correct (they are an uncountable descriptor for "nests") but squirrel was certainly not. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:12, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nothing on their conservation status in the Conservation section?
Added. I didn't easily find examples of other animals with least concern status having this explained in the article, but I don't see any reason not to include it. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:12, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A published study[58] has documented" Why do we need to emphasise "published"?
That's just odd, I removed it. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:12, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • ". It is one of three members of the genus Perisoreus along with the Siberian jay (P. infaustus) found from Norway to eastern Russia, and the Sichuan jay (P. internigrans) native to the mountains of eastern Tibet and northwestern Sichuan." This info is not in the article body, and I don't see why it is important enough for the intro. It should be moved to an appropriate section, with source.
Removed from lede. As far as I can tell there's no need to list all of the Perisoreus species in this article since the genus has its own article. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 02:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Like all Perisoreus jays, grey jays live" Likewise, you don't mention this outside the intro.
Removed, there wasn't a source for the comparison to "all Perisoreus jays" and there's only three of them anyway. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 01:52, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and Dene mythological figure" Only in intro.
Reworded to be more general, with details in the article. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 01:52, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are still various terms that need linking. Mobbing behaviour, various native American tribes, etc.
I think I've got them all. There should now be one wikilink from any term in the article deserving of a link, on the first occurrence, excepting the lede which may have duplicates as I understand that's how OVERLINK works. Please let me know if you find any more terms which should be linked. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 02:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "grey jay was selected as the winner of the contest" By how many votes? And by how much more?
Addressing this out of order before I get to the points above. The public poll portion of the contest selected five finalist species, which were then debated by an expert panel. The common loon actually earned the most votes, 13,995 to 7,918 for the grey jay which placed 3rd, but since vote total didn't appear to be a factor in the final judging I think it would be excessive detail to add the vote counts. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:28, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • You mainly give scientific names for animals once they are first mentioned, but there are some places where you don't. Would be good if it was consistent.
It should be consistent now. The first occurrence should be "wikilinked common name (scientific name)", and each subsequent occurrence should be unlinked common name only. I edited a few occurrences where the scientific name was wikilinked instead of the common name, and only a few where the scientific name was repeated. Let me know if I missed any. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 02:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, except a comment that I think FAC is a good next step...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:07, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, passed! Nice it all worked out in the end. FunkMonk (talk) 10:09, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to you both! Especially thanks for your patience, I'm sure this took more of your time than expected. Appreciate all the feedback, I'll have a better idea what to look for next time I take on promoting an article. Cheers! Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:26, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The main reason I push material I work on to FA status is that it is the closest thing we have to a stable version. It is a version that can be referred to if/when article erosion occurs over time. Editors will more likely revert unsourced additions or changes as well. Have a look at some FAs and maybe review some - go in with the thought, "is there anything specific that I can see that would make the article better?" and when that becomes a "no" is when you think the article is worthy of being an FA (ensuring of course that it complies with FA criteria.). I am happy to co-nom grey jay at FAC. I did have an idea of checking some more taxonomy and evolution though. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:07, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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