Talk:Rice/GA1
GA Review
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Reviewer: RecycledPixels (talk · contribs) 08:42, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
Hello, I am RecycledPixels. I will review this article between now and a few days after the holidays. I prefer to use the GA review table, which keeps me on task of evaluating just the GA criteria without getting lost in the weeds or bringing up MOS issues that aren't part of the criteria. The table is just a personal preference, although I realize that it can make threaded comments and responses difficult. Feel free to invent your own way of responding to my comments, whether it is in the table boxes in bold, italic, or colored text, or in a section immediately following the table. Generally, I also add a section after the table of other suggestions and comments that I have. Anything I mention outside the table in such a section is a suggestion only, and is not considered part of the pass/fail criteria of GA, so feel free to respond or disregard it if I make suggestions there. I will begin the first part of the reviews shortly. I usually take the review in several steps, and not normally in order. Please don't respond or edit this GA review page until I've completed item #7, the "overall assessment" field at the end, which is my sign that I have completed my steps, the ball is in your court, and I will wait for you to respond. That way we won't be disrupting each other with edit conflicts during this process. I will also ping you to let you know. RecycledPixels (talk) 08:42, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
- Many thanks. I'm away from my desk but will respond as far as possible now; anything complex may have to wait a little. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:47, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
- Chiswick Chap Me too. I see you're making some touch-up edits after this acceptance, and since I'm also occupied with family over the next few days, I'll wait for you to ping me that I'm good to go before I proceed further. RecycledPixels (talk) 10:22, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
- RecycledPixels: Go right ahead. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:38, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
- Chiswick Chap Me too. I see you're making some touch-up edits after this acceptance, and since I'm also occupied with family over the next few days, I'll wait for you to ping me that I'm good to go before I proceed further. RecycledPixels (talk) 10:22, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
Table
[edit]Since edits continue to be made to the article during the edit, this review will be addressing the state of the article at this revision, which is the state of the article after image and caption concerns had been made to date. Any further edits to the article will be addressed after the primary article authors have a chance to respond to and address this review. RecycledPixels (talk) 18:39, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
Rate | Attribute | Review Comment |
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1. Well-written: | ||
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. | As with any article, there are plenty of basic copyediting suggestions I can make, but the GA criteria only requires writing that is clear and understandable, with correct spelling and grammar. The article easily meets that level. | |
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. | MOS:LEAD:
MOS:WAF: Not applicable. MOS:EMBED: Not applicable. | |
2. Verifiable with no original research: | ||
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. | With 167 listed sources in the article, it would not be practical to perform verifications of each and every one of them. I did, however, look at all of the references that were used in the Biology, History, and Environmental Impacts sections. What I found was not encouraging.
Biology Section:
History of Cultivation section:
Environmental impacts section:
Other referencing issues that I have encountered in other sections while looking into different parts of this review:
| |
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). | Reliable Sources:
| |
2c. it contains no original research. | This one gets a pass, although the "half that of beef" issue raised in section 2a could have been put here instead. But it's mentioned above already. | |
2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism. | Non-automated copyvio search:
Automated search (Earwig's Copyvio Detector):
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3. Broad in its coverage: | ||
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. | Having grown up in a part of California with a lot of rice production, I was surprised to see no mention of the impact of burning rice straw in the environmental impacts section. There were years of debate in the state about the impacts on air quality before the state eventually banned the burning of rice fields in the 1990s. Local producers now use straw incorporation methods which introduce new issues such as disease persistence and net increased greenhouse gas production resulting from anaerobic decomposition of rice straw in soil. However, according to a 2009 paper I pulled up, in Asia, rice straw burning is still widely practiced, and 95% of the rice straw residue in the Philippines is removed by open-field burning. Similarly, there is no mention of pesticide use and overuse in the environmental impacts section. Contaminated soils and runoff water have a significant societal cost, especially in areas of low government monitoring and regulation.
Comparing the article to another Wikipedia article of similar coverage, Wheat which just recently passed GA, I see significant differences between the articles in the level of coverage in basic information, such as the Description, History, Evolution, and Agronomy. The Agronomy subjects in this article seem to be awkwardly combined into the Commerce section. The GA criteria under this category is pretty basic, however, allowing simple overviews of broad topics with no requirement for being comprehensive in its coverage. The ecological aspects I mentioned above are my only objections under this section. | |
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). | I don't have concerns in this category. | |
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. | I was not expecting to find any neutrality issues in the article, but...
| |
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. | Checked back to July 2023 and I do not see edit wars or content disputes other than routine expansion of the article and related copyedits. Article has been semi-protected since May 2014 due to persistent vandalism. | |
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: | ||
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. | Taking images in order in which they appear in the article:
Added during the review:
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6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. | There are several issues. Fixed
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7. Overall assessment. | Chiswick Chap: Overall, the article in its current state does not meet the criteria for a good article. While the copyvio issues are technically quickfail criteria, I don't see a reason to do that since you are actively engaged in responding to this review and improving the article in response to it, (to the point where I had to ask you to hold off a couple days until I was able to get through this review), and I don't think those issues will be difficult to address. I haven't looked at the edits, but I suspect that all or most of the things I brought up in 1b have already been addressed, so that shouldn't be a major task ahead. I think the section 2b and section 4 objections will be similarly easy to address. The 3a scope objection may take a bit more time, but there are plenty of resources out there. My main concern was what I turned up in the source checking section in 2a. Aside from other things I came across while working on different sections, I only sampled a few sections, looking in detail at only 30 of the article's 167 references and found 7 of those that have problems, plus 2 more with close paraphrasing or copied text. I can see that you have put a lot of work into the article over the last few months, but there's still a lot of it that remains from its long history of additions, removals, and edits since it was created in February 2002. The article probably needs a pretty thorough reference review and cleanup. I'm putting this nomination on hold for now. The hold period is technically 7 days, but I'm fine with waiting significantly longer than that if there is ongoing progress. When you have had a chance to review what I have raised and addressed, asked me to clarify, or challenged anything I have raised, ping me on this page and I'll sit down with it again and see how it looks. When I look a second time, I will be clear that I will do a citation review on sections that I have not done above, so don't consider the items in 2a to be a comprehensive list of everything wrong in the article. The ball is in your court, I'll stay hands off unless you need me to clarify something, and I'll wait for you to let me know you're ready for me to look at it again. You've commented that the table isn't well-suited for threaded conversations, and I agree. It tends to work out best when you create your own section below this, as you have already started to do. RecycledPixels (talk) 19:25, 28 December 2023 (UTC) |
Replies
[edit]Table getting unworkable on this device so let's try this.
1a
[edit]Noted, thank you.
1b
[edit]- Lead
- Start of lead: reordered.
- Staple: already cited in 'Food security'.
- Third-highest: added to text in 'Production', was already in graph.
- Sizable portions, many varieties, culinary preferences, monocot, well-suited to countries, steep hill: removed.
- Accordingly, rewritten lead by summarizing the sections of the article (with inline comments for editors).
- Layout
- Short paras/sections: Merged several.
- See also: trimmed list.
- WTW
- Unsupported attributions:
- Some sources claim: removed, we have FAO figures cited.
- estimated in 2021 to be responsible: removed per another item below.
- estimated that it takes about 2,500 litres: removed per another item below.
- Claims for says: edited x4.
- Disputed: removed.
- Botanicals: edited.
- Amino acids: edited.
- Just five countries: removed.
- Recently: removed.
2a
[edit]- Biology
- Ratoon crop for up to 30 years: removed time period.
- Waterlogging: edited, removed [7].
- Alternate wetting and drying: rewritten.
- Deepwater rice: removed Bhuiyan source (deepwater localities, not needed here).
- History of Cultivation
- First domesticated date: cite Molina 2011.
- Environmental impacts
- Beef: removed.
- More water: removed paragraph as non-neutral / off-topic.
- Other referencing issues
- Floating rice: removed.
- Largest collection: removed.
- "Knowledge Bank": replaced with 3 refs, one a specific page from Plantwise Knowledge Bank.
- "page 214" (3 times): cited full source, same each time.
- "No Early Spray": removed.
- "Home" (of IRRI): removed.
2b
[edit]- CBWInfo [97]: Removed, not needed.
- IRRI is an internationally respected authority on rice, and can be trusted on statements about rice cultivars and about itself.
- The Hindu [138]: Removed, not needed.
2c
[edit]Noted, thank you.
2d
[edit]- from Verheye 2010 [5]: Rewritten.
- from Rao Patil 2017 [68]: Rewritten.
- From Black 2010 [BBC, 66]: Rewritten.
3a
[edit]- Environmental impact: Burning rice straw: general issue for all crops. Covered at Stubble burning.
- Environmental impact: Pesticide runoff/overuse: general issues for all crops. Covered at Environmental impact of pesticides.
- Coverage of "Main aspects" vs my recent GA at Wheat: the focus of this article is agriculture and commerce. We have separate articles on Oryza and individual rice species. Wheat has a different focus, covering its many species and subspecies.
- Description: section covers main aspects.
- History: Added detail.
- Evolution: Added brief phylogeny for harmony; since this is not a taxon article it is basically just context, unlike the situation in wheat.
- Agronomy: Regrouped as chapter, added text and images.
- "Main aspects": noted, thank you.
3b
[edit]Noted, thank you.
4
[edit]- Climate change: Greenhouse gases: Edited.
5
[edit]Noted, thank you.
6a
[edit]Noted, thank you.
6b
[edit]Noted, thank you.
7
[edit]- Source checks: replaced some refs, removed some unverified text.
RecycledPixels: well, I've responded to all the comments, rewritten the lead, and looked over all the text and refs. I think I've reached the point where I've found what I can detect, so it's probably time for you to take another look. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:05, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
Additional Comments
[edit]Items in this section do not relate to the Good Article Criteria, and so do not affect whether the article passes or fails this GA nomination, whether the items are addressed or not. They are merely suggestions for improvements.
- Noted, thank you. I believe I've fixed many of these but as they're outside the criteria I have not addressed them individually.
- The images are formatted oddly, rendering the article with large, awkward white sections on my screen. Consider using thumbnail images aligned to the left or right rather than centered gallery images.
- Consider adding alt text to image captions per MOS:ALT.
- per MOS:CONSISTENT, the variety of English should be consistent throughout the article. I have not seen any discussion of which variety should be preferred in the article, but some discussion may be warranted.
- Not all sections of the article with units of measure provide conversions between Metric and imperial units, such as the commerce section. Other units are converted in a way that introduces false precision, such as "Pakistan (3.75 million metric tons (4.13 million short tons))".
- The second paragraph of the "Climate Change" subsection under the "Environmental Impacts" section is about the effect of climate change on the production of rice, not the effect of the production of rice on climate change, and should be moved to a more appropriate section, such as one that describes the production of rice (doesn't exist in the article's current form).
- Some sections have WP:OVERCITE problems with many citations attached to a simple, uncontroversial statement.
- Many incorrectly-formatted references. Since the provided citation generally gets me to the right place, they aren't GA-FAIL items, but they should be fixed.
- Reference 6 "More rice with less water" does not identify the author of the paper, or the complete title of the paper.
- Reference 7 "Plants capable of surviving flooding" does not identify the correct authors, title, date, or clearly state the website the article appears on (uu.nl is not obvious to most people)
- Reference 8 "IRRI Rice Knowledge Bank" does not identify the correct title of the article.
- Reference 39 "Indian farmer sets new record..." does not have a correct URL to the article.
- Reference 40 "Grassroots heroes lead..." does not identify the author of the article.
- Reference 41 "Chinese whispers over rice..." does not identify the authors of the article. "The Telegraph" is a common publication name and should include a publication-place= parameter in the citation to disambiguate the publication.
- Reference 44 "Guide to Rice" does not correctly identify the title of the article.
- Reference 60 "Meat accounts for nearly..." does not identify the author of the article.
- Reference 69 "Virtual Water Trade" does not properly identify the title of the chapter, the authors of the chapter, the editor of the book, the publisher or publisher location of the book, or the publication date. But before you fix it, see my note about reference 69 in the "references don't support cited material" section.
- Reference 70 "How better rice..." does not identify the publication date. I don't have access to the article to see if an author is named.
- Reference 71 "How much water does..." incorrectly identifies the publication name, and does not identify the author, publication date, or page number.
- Reference 100 "Rice Varieties and Management Tips..." is a 32-page publication. No page numbers or authors are cited.
- Reference 103 "Bangladeshi farmers banish..." does not identify the article author, and does not completely identify the publisher of the website.
- Reference 104 "IRRI.org" is a link to a 7:45 YouTube video. It does not identify the title of the video, the author of the video, or the location within the video that supports the cited statement.
- Reference 108 "The pesticide paradox" does not identify the publisher of the website where this article appears or the accessdate when the information appeared on the website.
- Reference 109 "Three Gains, Three Reductions" inaccurately identifies the title of the article, and the publisher of the website. It does not identify the author of the article (you'll need to click on "The Project" header to figure out who "MONI" is).
- Reference 124 "Rice" does not identify the publisher of the website or the publication date.
- Reference 126 "The International Rice Genebank" does not clearly identify the publisher of the website.
- Reference 129 "NERICA:Rice for Life" incorrectly identifies the publisher/author of the article
- Reference 132 "Rice Varieties" incorrectly identifies the author of this article.
- Reference 138 "Swarma Sub1: flood resistant..." incorrectly identifies the publication date of the "article".
- Reference 141 "Newly-discovered rice gene..." does not identify the publisher of the website or accurately report the date of the article.
- Reference 143 "Rice Breeding Course..." does not have an accessdate for this web publication.
- Reference 144 "Less Salt Please" does not clearly and completely identify the publisher of the website.
- Reference 146 "Do rice and salt go together?" does not clearly and completely identify the publisher of the website.
- Reference 149 "Feeding the world one..." does not clearly identify the publisher of the website
- Reference 154 "Rice in Religion and Tradition" does not accurately identify the publication, publisher, location, page numbers. Ahuja, S. C. & Ahuja, U. (2006). Rice in religion and tradition. In Souvenir, 2nd International Rice Congress, New Delhi, October 9–13 (pp. 45–52).
- Reference 167 "Five rice varieties..." does not adequately disambiguate between the several publishers named "The Nation" and should include a publisher location.
Second reading
[edit]Thank you for the quick responses. I will take a second look at the article now that you have made the changes listed above. For this, I will be using This version of the page which reflects its current state. RecycledPixels (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
1b again
[edit]2a again
[edit]- Not fixed I looked at the newly-reorganized Agronomy section and the Biotechnology section, a total of 25 of the article's present 147 references. There are still a number of referencing issues that I encountered in this spot check. The article does not meet the GA criteria's standards for this category.
- Many thanks. I've addressed the items below. We seem to be finding fewer and smaller items, i.e. we are converging. I'll check the article over again (trying to see it afresh); I've scanned the whole article again and fixed some more issues.
- RecycledPixels: I have BOTH fixed the identified items AND scanned the article for issues I can detect, and fixed those I found. I am not just addressing the flagged issues, but of course I've addressed them too.
- Many thanks. I've addressed the items below. We seem to be finding fewer and smaller items, i.e. we are converging. I'll check the article over again (trying to see it afresh); I've scanned the whole article again and fixed some more issues.
Agronomy:
Across Asia, unmilled rice or "paddy" (Indonesian and Malay padi), is almost entirely the product of smallholder agriculture, and is often harvested manually.
is unsourced. I'm not sure it's entirely accurate, either, but being able to verify that information would help me make that decision.- Updated, that was the traditional practice. Added a sub-ref; IRRI has a page-subpage-subsubpage-... system.
Biotechnology:
- The first three sentences in the "High-yielding varieties" section seem to be sourced to reference 114 (Hettel 2016). The first sentence is confusingly worded, since I would assume that most varieties that were produced prior to the Green Revolution were also aiming to increase production.
- Edited.
- The source mentions that the IRRI's primary mission was to develop new high-yielding rice varieties by modifying the plant's architecture, and I saw in the Green Revolution article that the IRRI was established in 1960 during that Green Revolution, so perhaps it could be reworded. The article, however does not tie the growth of industrialism in Asia to the increase of rice yields, so the second sentence definitely needs a {{citation needed}} tag.
- Removed, the sentence is about the economics of the Green Revolution, off-topic for this article.
- I might be missing out on something, somewhere, but I don't understand the "Rice Car" name given here in quotes, which doesn't appear in the reference or in the IR8 article.
- Reworded.
- The rest of the High-yielding varieties paragraph is cited to reference 115 (Yamaguchi 2008). It's a 30-page article and it's very technical, but I can't find any of the information that is cited to it in that source article. Can you give me a page number so I can narrow it down? I tried searching for "photos" as the beginning of the word "photosynthesis or photosynthetic" but the one instance of "photosynthetic" has nothing to do with photosynthetic investments in the stem. I likewise could not find any instances of the words "fertilizer", "nitrogen", or "yield".
- Removed Yamaguchi and the technical description; added a simple description based on Hettel 2016.
- In the Drought-tolerant rice section,
Under drought conditions, without sufficient water to afford them the ability to obtain the required levels of nutrients from the soil, conventional commercial rice varieties can be severely affected—for example, yield losses as high as 40% have affected some parts of India, with resulting losses of around US$800 million annually
. The cited source is much more vague than the precise figure of 40% for yield losses in India due to water scarcity.- Edited.
The International Rice Research Institute conducts research into developing drought-tolerant rice varieties, including the varieties 5411 and Sookha dhan, currently being employed by farmers in the Philippines and Nepal respectively
. The attached source does not mention variety 5411. Is that another name for one of the varieties mentioned in the source? If so, which is the more precise name? If it's 5411, is there a better source that uses that name, or some way you can help a reader verify the article's statement if they question it?- Similar but different drought-tolerant varieties. Updated the sentence from the article.
2b again
[edit]Fixed. Questionable sources removed. I'll relent on the IRRI item, but I still think superlatives about an organization should be cited to neutral, independent sources.
2d again
[edit]Fixed. Issues resolved, no new issues seen in the source check I performed in section 2a above.
3a again
[edit]Fixed. Items addressed or rebutted.
4 again
[edit]Fixed. Item of concern has been addressed.
6a check on new images added since GA review start
[edit]- File:Kerbau Jawa.jpg plausibly published as own work under GNU and CC licenses.
- File:Cambodian farmers planting rice.jpg published to Flickr with CC-BY license and verified by FlickreviewR bot in 2014 (original no longer on Flickr).
- File:Rice-planting-machine 2,katori-city,japan.JPG is plausibly published under a CC-BY and GNU Free 1.2 license.
- File:Pana Banaue Rice Terraces (Cropped).jpg is a derivative of File:Pana Banaue Rice Terraces.jpg, uploaded to en.wikipedia as self-taken by a user in good standing and later moved to commons. Plausibly published under CC and GNU licenses.
7 overall again
[edit]- Failed. Chiswick Chap, I still have concerns on the source check I performed when revisiting this. I see that while I have been working on this second review, you have addressed the issues above as well as others in the article. I have listed the issues under section 2a of the GA criteria, but they're probably actually 2b "all Wikipedia:Content that could reasonably be challenged must be cited" items. In this most recent round, some of the identified items, like the "Rice Car" issue, variety 5411, and the confusingly-worded first sentence in the High-yielding varieties were mostly small issues that wouldn't have held me up if that's all I found. But the source misattribution examples are a big deal. The unsourced statements could also be considered source misattribution since they were sandwiched near or between cited material. 7 of the 25 sources that I looked at were from a section that I had already included in the original source check, so I wasn't expecting to find any problems with that section, and I didn't. But I do want to stress again that I am only doing spot checks of references, and the list of identified items should not be considered a comprehensive review of all the problems in the article. When I do another review of this article, I will not check the same sections. Leaving article on hold for now, ping me when you feel that you have had enough time to check the references and that it is ready for another look. RecycledPixels (talk) 19:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
Checking all cited claims (not previously checked)
[edit]- RecycledPixels: which sections have you not checked? Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:51, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- Commerce
- Production: Checked and updated.
- Food security: Checked and simplified.
- Processing: Checked and simplified.
- Trade: checked and simplified.
- Yield records: checked and updated.
- Worldwide consumption: checked and updated.
- Food
- Eating qualities: checked and simplified.
- Nutrition: checked and simplified.
- Golden rice: checked and simplified.
- Pests, weeds, and diseases
- Pests and weeds: checked and simplified.
- Diseases: checked and simplified.
- Integrated pest management: checked and simplified.
- Ecotypes and cultivars
- : checked and simplified.
- Model organism
- : checked and simplified.
- In human culture.
- : checked and simplified.
- (listed the unchecked level 2 sections) RecycledPixels (talk) 19:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- (added subsections) OK, I'll scan those again now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- RecycledPixels: well, I've always adopted a WP:AGF approach to existing text, believing that edits have been made reasonably well with at least some attempt at citation. The systematic checks I've just made, listed above, prove that this was not the case in this article, as some items had clearly been added without a source, while others had been "updated" years later, introducing a range of errors. To fix this, I have radically revised these sections, replacing many old sources with far fewer newer ones. I believe we now have a clean, fully-verified text that covers the subject clearly and concisely. If you do find anything wrong, believe me it wasn't for want of effort, and I trust you'll let me fix it, it shouldn't take long if there is anything. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- (added subsections) OK, I'll scan those again now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
Third review
[edit]Looking good. For the third check, I will be looking at this version of the article, at the 13 references listed in the "Food" and the "Ecotypes and cultivars" sections. RecycledPixels (talk) 17:34, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- Source check looks good in those sections, plus I checked the revisions made after the last review. I went back through the article to make sure none of the recent overhauling has introduced any other GA Criteria issues, and of course found none. The only sticky point (so to speak) that I found, in the Ecotypes and cultivars section, was the sentence
Much of southeast Asia grows sticky or glutinous rice varieties
. I'm not quite sure what you were aiming for there. It's true, it is grown in parts of Southeast Asia, but according to the source, about 37 countries from five continents have grown glutinous rice. I don't think that the source would support the assertion that glutinous rice is the primary variety grown in Southeast Asia but I haven't taken the time to grind the numbers. As it is, the statement is true, and tied to a verifiable source, so it's nothing that blocks the nomination. In its current state, the article is in good shape and there is nothing that prevents me from passing the nomination. Thank you for all the hard work you've put into this article. Passed RecycledPixels (talk) 19:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)