Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Big Raven Formation/archive1

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 archived by FrB.TG via FACBot (talk) 14 April 2024 [1].

Big Raven Formation

Nominator(s): Volcanoguy 01:22, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a geologically young rock unit in northern British Columbia, Canada. I've researched the Big Raven Formation thoroughly and I haven't neglected any major facts or details in this article, having been familiar with the subject for many years. It's the youngest but least voluminous geological formation of the Mount Edziza volcanic complex, one of the most active volcanic complexes in Canada throughout the Holocene. Volcanoguy 01:22, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comment

Recusing to air a concern.

Could we have a map in the infobox to help identify where it is. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:15, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I added a map in the article body because I couldn't figure out how to add it in the infobox; it kept showing errors. Volcanoguy 14:38, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've added {{Infobox mapframe}} in the infobox like I did for Edziza Formation and Sheep Track Member. Volcanoguy 15:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One of the FAC criteria requires an article to be "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". This one is extremely reliant on a single source. While the specialist literature on this formation is limited I am a little surprised to see no mention of, for example, Read and Psutka 1985; Spooner and Osborn 2000; Hungerford et al 2000; Lakeman et al 2008. I note that the last three of these are more recent than Souther, demonstrating that the sum of knowledge on this topic may have grown over the past 32 years and leading me to wonder if the FAC criteria "it neglects no major facts or details" has been met. This sample is not exhaustive. While I understand the difficulty of proving a negative, I hope that it is clear where I am coming from and hope that you can reassure me that FAC criteria 1b and 1c are met. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:46, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have no access to the sources you mentioned except for Lakeman et al 2008 which mentions the Big Raven Formation only once and is not very useful (it mentions information from Souther 1992). The last detailed study of the Big Raven Formation and of the Mount Edziza volcanic complex in general was conducted by Souther as far as I'm aware of. Volcanoguy 22:11, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Airship

Oppose an inspection of source-text integrity (which I note does not appear to have happened at GA, contrary to WP:GAN/I#R3) shows extensive issues ith close paraphrasing; this is often an issue with articles that rely near-entirely on one source. Note the following from the "Erosion and vegetation" section:

Wikipedia article	Source
"the oldest pyroclastic cones have been deeply eroded or reduced to mounds of red rubble"	"The older cones are deeply dissected or reduced to formless mounds of red, scoriaceous rubble."
"of intermediate age retain most of their original forms, although fine tephra ... has eroded away to expose larger bombs and agglutinated spatter."	"Those of intermediate age retain their original form, but the fine tephra has been washed away, leaving only the larger bombs and agglutinated spatter."
"Intermittent meltwater streams have cut small meandering channels"	"intermittent meltwater streams have already cut rills and small meandering channels"
"Pioneer vegetation occurs only as isolated pockets on lava flows of intermediate age which are more or less overlain with caribou moss and lichen."	"Flows of intermediate age support only isolated pockets of pioneer vegetation , and ... are more or less covered by lichen and caribou moss."

As this level of close paraphrasing is below even GA standards, I would recommend withdrawal and an immediate GA reassessment. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:31, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Have you looked at WP:LIMITED? Volcanoguy 22:42, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. That does not justify essentially copy-pasting with minor adjustments for large quantities of text: "Note, however, that closely paraphrasing extensively from a non-free source may be a copyright problem, even if it is difficult to find different means of expression." Most of the rest of that section was also essentially CLOP—I just selected the most egregious examples. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:20, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's users like you that make Wikipedia not worth writing for anymore. Always finding faults with no solutions. Volcanoguy 04:06, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The solution is rewriting without the plagiarism, which is supposed to be the norm here. - SchroCat (talk) 05:33, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest doing so by incorporating the sources Gog mentioned above, Volcanoguy. In general, if you cannot "write for Wikipedia" without plagiarising, the advice is to not write at all. Not every article can realistically be taken to FA, and if the quest for "comprehensivity" takes you into contravening a policy with legal implications, focusing on another is probably a better shout. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:29, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per the above. I was also concerned with the heavy reliance on a single source throughout; not being a subject expert I don’t push the point, but it does raise the question of whether this constitutes a thorough review of the literature. - SchroCat (talk) 05:33, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Going by this it doesn't seem like there is a lot of sourcing that can be used here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 06:49, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It was the lesser of my two concerns (although both that search and a few others do show some sources no present in the article; I haven't been through each of them, but some use of these would allay that concern). The plagiarism aspect is still a knock-out for me, however. - SchroCat (talk) 08:03, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given the issues of copyvio/overclose paraphrasing and over-reliance on one source, I'm going to archive this. The usual two-week wait before another nomination will apply. FrB.TG (talk) 10:42, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. FrB.TG (talk) 10:42, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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