Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Featured log/June 2007
- Support - Very well Written. --Sumangal_Vinjamuri 07:38, 16 February 2012 (IST)
- 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 16:57, 28 June 2007.
Probably not one of Hogarth's more famous series, these four pictures provide a light-hearted snapshot of 18th century London. ALoan and I have tried to pick out the details. I hope you find it interesting (and that ALoan returns to help me out with any objections). Yomanganitalk 16:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
- Interesting article, congratulations. Comments:
This sentence is, I think, misleading/difficult: Four Times of the Day was the first set of prints that Hogarth had published since his two great successes A Harlot's Progress (1732) and A Rake's Progress (1735) and one of the first to be published after the Engraving Copyright Act 1734 (which Hogarth had helped push through Parliament) had come into force. (1) It makes it seem like the prints were among the first in general to be printed, when really there must have been hundreds of prints published between 1735-8. (2) A Rake's Progress was published after the Act came into force; indeed, Hogarth held it back for this reason. The words 'one of the first' make is seem like Hogarth was making an important innovation when he printed Four Times of the Day, when really he was just doing the same as he had for at least one major set of prints already.- I thought that phrasing made it clearer that it was one of Hogarth's first publications since the act rather than one of the first in general, but obviously not. I've rephrased it. Yomanganitalk 00:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
The background paragraph contains the comment 'Find ref in Paulson', which presumably needs dealing with- Fixed (I knew I missed one). Yomanganitalk 00:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
- The article doesn't say much about the history of the paintings after they were painted. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Morning and Night are kept at Upton House, Warwickshire and Noon and Evening are in a private collection. It would be nice, if possible, to include something about how they got there. The article on Upton House contains some info.
- Ycdkwm 19:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
- This is tricky. The other two are in the Ancaster Collection at Grimsthorpe Castle, never having been resold, but the two at Upton House seem to have left little trail between Heathcote buying them at the auction and Bearsted gifting them to the National Trust. I've filled in a little detail. Yomanganitalk 00:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for this, this is the kind of information I was thinking of.
- This is tricky. The other two are in the Ancaster Collection at Grimsthorpe Castle, never having been resold, but the two at Upton House seem to have left little trail between Heathcote buying them at the auction and Bearsted gifting them to the National Trust. I've filled in a little detail. Yomanganitalk 00:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support, as my comments above have been dealt with Ycdkwm 18:40, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support. Another fine article by Yomangani, who is making a considerable contribution to the visual arts area on Wikipedia, which is much neglected. I didn't so much read this article as pore over it, opening up all the images and comparing them with each other and the text, as well as feeling prompted to read connected articles and bits and pieces in books about Hogarth. In the latter case, I found the text to be fully supported by the secondary sources I could get hold of. qp10qp 21:37, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
- Weak Support - a few sentences not directly referenced that probably should be, e.g."In the distance, a cartload of furniture passes Charles' statue, perhaps penurious tenants escaping from their landlord under the cover of darkness." bt I'm happy to accept that the surrounding references cover them. "Four Times of the Day was the first series of prints that Hogarth had issued since the success of the the Harlot and Rake and would be the only set he would issue until Marriage à-la-mode in 1745, so it was eagerly anticipated." - did they know he was planning Marriage á-la-Mode? Because if not, it's hard to see how its date makes the prints more anticipated. Scans of the engravings could stand to be a fair bit larger - it's hard to make out some of the details. I don't think this all adds up to an oppose, but it's a bit problematic. Adam Cuerden talk 05:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've put the Marriage á-la-Mode clause in parentheses to make it clear that they were eagerly anticipated because of the Harlot and Rake. As to the size of the images, if anybody can find better copies I'd be happy to replace them, but I'm afraid those were the best copies I've been able to get hold of. Yomanganitalk 15:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support - succinct crisp prose and comprehensive - congrats. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Not yet- doesn't feel quite balanced in terms of sections and layout.
DoneThe background section is a hefty chunk of prose to get through before getting to the actual pictures themselves. Could the background material be itself split up to make it more digestable?- The sections on each of the four pictures are fine, but the first two having a "detail" picture and the last two not makes it feel top-heavy. I would suggest having the same number of pictures in each of the "series" subsections (ie. Morning, Noon, Evening, Night), and ensuring the amount of text in each section balances as well.
- The individual picture subsections could also be broken up a bit by bold titles introducing the paragraphs on different parts of that painting (use the ";" formatting).
- After reading through four lengthy analyses of the four paintings, the "Reception" section feels too short in comparison.
- DoneFinally, the introductory picture should be a montage of the four paintings (get some technical wizard to do this for you if you can't). At first, I thought the picture of Hogarth was the painting itself. The picture of Hogarth should go in the background section.
- If all this is done or there are good reasons not to do them, then I'd support. Carcharoth 13:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I'm a bit stuck here. My personal preferences in this area seem to run contrary to yours. Does adding headings to the paragraphs really help? To me it seems to break the article down into something more of a list and constrains the discussion. I don't see any need for additional pictures in the discussion of the second two pictures, although I'm open to suggestions if you have an idea of what should appear. Not all the pictures have the same amount of discussion because not all the pictures have the same number of topics to discuss: there's a lot going on in some of them and less in others. I don't think there is anything more to say in the reception section: very little has been written on their reception (if you can find anything it would be a welcome addition). Finally, I've added the group pic as suggested. I'm not sure it adds a lot as it is too small to be able to make out any of the details, but I don't suppose it detracts from the article either. Yomanganitalk 15:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- I find the montage picture a great improvement, and the picture in the background section is enough to break up the text, so I'm happy with those bits. I still feel the layout of the detail pictures is clumsy. I'll try something on the article itself - see if you think it improves it. The same for the bold bits. I'll look in tomorrow and will probably support then. Nothing to say about the rest of the article - great writing and fascinating subject. Carcharoth 17:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- In fact, I thought the extra pictures in the top two sections were details from the main pictures. I see now they are showing details from other pictures. Why not start a new section titled "Relation to other works" or something? And use those two pictures there and work in the text from the main picture sections? Carcharoth 17:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- Seeing as the pictures are discussed in order I think it would be a little awkward to split out some of the details from each to a separate section. That approach works well when discussing a single piece, but I think this linear structure works better in the case of a series. (Glad you like the montage, I think it's growing on me too.) Yomanganitalk 17:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- Personally I find the details from Battle of the Pictures and Rape of the Sabine Women distracting. There are other examples where you could illustrate what you are talking about, for example, Gin Lane, but you chose to focus on these two instead. I still think having just the two pictures (painting and engraving) for each of the four sections would work best, but I won't oppose just for that! :-) Carcharoth 12:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
- Seeing as the pictures are discussed in order I think it would be a little awkward to split out some of the details from each to a separate section. That approach works well when discussing a single piece, but I think this linear structure works better in the case of a series. (Glad you like the montage, I think it's growing on me too.) Yomanganitalk 17:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- In fact, I thought the extra pictures in the top two sections were details from the main pictures. I see now they are showing details from other pictures. Why not start a new section titled "Relation to other works" or something? And use those two pictures there and work in the text from the main picture sections? Carcharoth 17:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- I find the montage picture a great improvement, and the picture in the background section is enough to break up the text, so I'm happy with those bits. I still feel the layout of the detail pictures is clumsy. I'll try something on the article itself - see if you think it improves it. The same for the bold bits. I'll look in tomorrow and will probably support then. Nothing to say about the rest of the article - great writing and fascinating subject. Carcharoth 17:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I'm a bit stuck here. My personal preferences in this area seem to run contrary to yours. Does adding headings to the paragraphs really help? To me it seems to break the article down into something more of a list and constrains the discussion. I don't see any need for additional pictures in the discussion of the second two pictures, although I'm open to suggestions if you have an idea of what should appear. Not all the pictures have the same amount of discussion because not all the pictures have the same number of topics to discuss: there's a lot going on in some of them and less in others. I don't think there is anything more to say in the reception section: very little has been written on their reception (if you can find anything it would be a welcome addition). Finally, I've added the group pic as suggested. I'm not sure it adds a lot as it is too small to be able to make out any of the details, but I don't suppose it detracts from the article either. Yomanganitalk 15:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support - following above discussion. Carcharoth 12:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
More great work on an interesting subject, Yomangani. This one doesn't have an infobox, while your last one did. I'm not bothered either way, but you might see if there's a standard on a project somewhere. I think there are a few paragraphs that are somewhat overloaded—the first and last of Background, for example. I'd digest the info better with a few more para breaks. Evening also seems a touch underweight compared to the others. Two specific things:
- "Paulson sees the kite hanging from the church as forming a trinity of signs" threw me. The headless woman is an actual sign, the black man's head is a complimentary sign,(?) so "Paulson sees the kite as the third in a trinity of signs"?
- "perhaps Venus, Adonis and Cupid..."; assuming that's not your guess, it should be attributed.
Finally, watch en dash use where em is appropriate. Cheers, Marskell 11:18, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've tried to make the trinity of signs clearer: it refers to the two real signs on the other side of the street, and attributed the fan comment. There is no appropriate infobox: the painting infoboxes are the closest there are, but it would mean attempting to shoehorn the details in. I think it is better as is. Yomanganitalk 11:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- Re-reading it seems more clear it's John the Baptist's head. It's just that with two intervening sentences you risk the reader not grasping it. Is the Evening scene meant to say anything else about gender? Both with the children and the adults, the female appears domineering. The horns to symbolize cuckolding is interesting. Just a thought.
- I'm supporting. Good work. Marskell 07:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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 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 16:57, 28 June 2007.
Hi. Minneapolis is a GA, has peer review and appears to be stable and meet FA criteria. A number of contributors are part of WikiProject Minnesota which is very active and some of us also worked with WikiProject Cities earlier this year to develop the article's structure. (Just a note that feedback since GA review suggested that we work on transitions so I will move this article at WikiProject League of Copyeditors from "other articles" up to "FAC and FAR articles" since the group there seems to be quite busy.) Thank you. -Susanlesch 18:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support with a grain of salt because I was a primary editor and contributor. -Susanlesch 19:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support very comprehensive, good use of images, well written and well sourced. Kamryn Matika 19:30, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support article is very well-written, well-sourced, and can serve as almost a model for other city articles on wikipedia. I've also witnessed much of this article's transformation and editing in the past few months, since it's GA nomination, and I think it's worthy of the FA star. Nice work! Dr. Cash 21:16, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support. Well referenced and written. Good work! -- Underneath-it-All 03:36, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment—MOS now requires en dashes for all year, date and page ranges. Please check the references section. Tony 15:29, 24 June 2007 (UTC) Done
- Thanks for the comment. -Susanlesch 16:32, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
*Object-Image:Cityflag2.gif, Image:Mplsseal.gif, and others have no fair-use rationals. Please check all images and provide necessary documentation.--trey 03:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- Hello, trey. Can you tell me please to what images you refer? The two you link to here both have rationales. No other images need rationales because none are non-free. P.S. (Are you looking at the right article?) -Susanlesch 05:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- Err, didnt see the little rationals. Good job, then. --trey 14:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks much for taking a second look. -Susanlesch 15:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support Reads very well, good sources, extremely comprehensive. I also see rationales are provided for the above images in question. Cricket02 04:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Oppose. Incorrect usage of the cite templates results in an inconsistent bibiliographic style and makes it difficult to evaluate sources for reliability. Publishers are often mistakenly identified in the author field of the template, while actual publishers aren't always given. Running through every source to correct the cite template will be time-consuming, but without specification of publishers, it's very hard to determine what kinds of sources are used. Please see WP:CITET and WP:CITE/ES for explanations on correct usage of the cite templates.SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I will see what I can do after work. Too many 'cite web's may be in place now. P.S. 163 of them at least. Out of curiosity I looked this up from last summer, Wikipedia talk:Citing sources, "Seems like a heckuvalotta work to do it and change it later so I wanted to ask." and have as a result used 'cite web' in all kinds of articles (and note it has a different author field than some of the other cite templates). But it's okay, we'll get this one right for now and then I will go back and look at the other articles.-Susanlesch 19:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm sure the [cite:web] template is fine per WP:CITET. I could be wrong but I think what Sandy means is to go through them and add additional parameters, if possible, i.e. |pubisher=, etc., for better clarification. Cricket02 20:33, 25 June 2007 (UTC)- Refs fixed now, striking my oppose. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- Should we have a map of the park system (i.e. the Chain of Lakes, parkway system, and trails)? Or any other maps? I can see if I can whip something up in Quantum GIS. Also, the mention of Hubert Humphrey joining the Democratic Party and the Farmer-Labor Party to become the DFL is more of a statewide issue than a Minneapolis issue. The article should say what he did for Minneapolis, such as improving the situation for civil rights. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 04:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- What do you think of a wide panel of maps across the bottom of the parks section, two or three maps across? Thanks for the correction. The Humphrey sentence is changed. Is "activist" is the right word? -Susanlesch 23:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- The Humphrey sentence is more applicable now. As far as the term "activist" is concerned, I think it's accurate. I was thinking about doing just one map with all the parks and trails on it (the Chain of Lakes, the parkways, major city parks, and the other trails), since it would show an integrated system better. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 01:59, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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 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 16:57, 28 June 2007.
Self-nomination. I've been working on this article on and off for the past two month or so (with a lot of help). It passed GA, and I can't think of anything else to add to it, so this is the next step. --Jude 02:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support as WP birds member and contributor to this article. I have assisted in tweaking this article for some time and feel it fulfils criteria. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support as another WP birds member. I've used this article as a comparison for another article I'm working on and it's great. I think it definitely fulfills the criteria. Cheers, Corvus coronoides 23:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment I haven't had time to go through it properly so I won't support yet. It looks fairly good from what I've read so far, but the linking seems poor. Low value links are unnecessarily linked (colours, seasons), other links are repetitively linked (bird feeder, incubation) and the occasional helpful link is omitted (places mentioned in the ranges being linked would help). Neither of the incubation links go directly to the right article by the way. I also found the range descriptions for the subspecies less than clear in some places (e.g. The winter range extends as far as Florida to central Mexico from where? saying "as far as" two different places is awkward phrasing). These could be expanded to make the ranges clear without detracting from the article. Finally, wouldn't "fall" be a better choice than "autumn" here: it reads strangely to me with American spelling and British vocabulary. I'll hopefully have time to have a better look at it soon. Yomanganitalk 01:43, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support - Comprehensive and nicely illustrated. I still have some minor quibbles, but not enough to withhold support:
- it needs the dashes sorting out Done
- units need to be given consistently in Imperial as well as metric units Done
- American v British English needs checking (I still found some examples of mixing and I wasn't looking very hard) Done
- in the brood-parasitism paragraph if the mentions of "cowbird" refer to the Brown-headed Cowbird the name should be given in full so we know it isn't any old cowbird species. If it is any cowbird species then the special mention of the Brown-headed Cowbird at the beginning should be dropped. Done Yomanganitalk 14:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- it needs the dashes sorting out
- Support - Comprehensive and nicely illustrated. I still have some minor quibbles, but not enough to withhold support:
Minor opposeWell written and well referenced, but some MOS issues keep me from lending support:- The main issue it seemes, is what Yomangani notes above as poor linking. Common terms, like colors (olive? yellow?) are linked, while in other cases, the first instance of locations (British Columbia, Ontario) are not; Locations provide important context and should always be linked; colors are common enough they should almost never be linked. The article needs to have this fixed. Done
- I think I've fixed that...if I missed anything, just tell me and I'll fix it. Jude 15:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- Also, the use of dashes is inconsistent. Number ranges should use ndashes and not hyphens or the word "and". see WP:DASH. Done
- In general the unit abbreviations in some places need cleanup per WP:MOSNUM. Spell out the whole unit for the main unit, and use abbreviations only in parenthesis or tables. Use nonblocking spaces to prevent wrap issues. For example, where the article says: " 11-13 cm (4-5 in) " it should read " 11–13 centimeters (4–5 in) ". (using ndash and nbsp). Done
- The main issue it seemes, is what Yomangani notes above as poor linking. Common terms, like colors (olive? yellow?) are linked, while in other cases, the first instance of locations (British Columbia, Ontario) are not; Locations provide important context and should always be linked; colors are common enough they should almost never be linked. The article needs to have this fixed.
- Fix these, and this should be FA quality. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:52, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comments from Universe=atom
- Why is there no "See also" section that gives links to other birds of similar characteristics or of similar classifications. Perhaps one can be made in the article.
- In the "References" section, why do most links specifically say that they are in the language English? If I remember correct, I think that it states in one of the sub manuals of style that only references of foreign languages should be labeled specially stating the language. Ignore this point if I am wrong. Done
- I totally agree with user Jayron32 about the links. I think that those should be fixed so that non-important ones (e.g. colours, seasons, etc.) should be removed and important ones should be linked. This is a major problem in the article.
- Grammar mistake (in lead): "The American Goldfinch is granivorous, and has adapted several features in order to aid seedhead consumption, such as a conical beak to better remove the seeds, and agile feet with which to grip the stems of seedheads while feeding." No comma required between compound verbs and between compound objects of prepositions. Done
- Grammar (section 1): "Its closest relatives are the Lesser Goldfinch (C. psaltria ), Lawrence's Goldfinch (C. lawrencei) and the siskins." Obviously, this article should be written in American English. So, the serial comma should be used. Done
- Grammar (section 1): "Though it shares a name with the European Goldfinch, the two are in separate subgenera, and are not directly related." No comma required between compound verbs.
- Grammar (section 2): "In some winter ranges, the goldfinches lose all traces of yellow, becoming a predominantly medium tan-gray color, with an olive tinge evident only on close viewing." No comma required before the word with. Done
- Grammar (section 2): "A tsee-tsi-tsi-tsit, call is often given in flight..." No comma required before the word call. Done
- Grammar (section 2): "While the female incubates the eggs she calls her returning mate with a" A comma is required after prepositional phrases in the beginning of a sentence. Done
- Grammar (subsection 4.1): "The American Goldfinch is a diurnal feeder. It is mainly granivorous, but will occasionally eat insects, which it feeds to its young in order to provide them with protein." No comma required between compound verbs. Done
- Perhaps a navbox or two can be put at the end of the article. If no relevant ones can be found, ignore this point.
- Perhaps section 3 can be expanded a bit.
- I don't think that there is any other information that can be added to this section. The section is short, but I haven't been able to locate any more detailed information, and I think that the information provided covers the topic thoroughly. If there is a specific piece of information that should be added, I can do my best to find that. cheers, Jude 16:39, 24 June 2007 (UTC).
If all of these points are taken of, I think I will support this nomination. On a good note, this article is well-written and well-referenced. It has some potential as an FA. Universe=atomTalk•Contributions 11:08, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- To answer the first point, many other editors, myself included, consider see also sections highly unencyclopaedic. Any relevant articles can be included in the main text. To answer a later point, the only avian navbox that currently exists is a higher order one dealing with important ornithology subjects and bird orders, so, as suggested, taht point can be ignored. Sabine's Sunbird talk 11:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- Since when are "See also" section considered unencyclopedic? It is even part of the MoS that there should be a section on Miscellaneous topics, or, in other words, a "See also" section? Universe=atomTalk•Contributions 11:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've been involved in FA noms for around a year and none of the articles I've nominated or been involved in nominating have had one. I can see the case very occasionally when there are some related topics which may be hard to link to directly in the text but I don't think that's the case here. What do you not see in the article proper taht would you want in it? We can look at where it should go cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:55, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
- A "See also" is not universally desirable or undesirable. It depends upon the article, and hard rules about what features an article should have are themselves undesirable. If, say, one were writing about one facet of a large controversy, not only would there be links in the text, but there might be contextual topics listed in a "see also." If one were doing, say, Theater of the absurd, it might well be useful to have a see also to Epic theater and Theater of cruelty, as all three were reactions and developments that emerged at the same time to overarching pressures. If one were doing a single development of Nietzsche's philosophy, the see-also might well direct readers to anti-rationalism and Hegel and Kierkegaard. I'm not sure that a Goldfinch is going to have that kind of context (unless it's something like finch morphology or new world finches), but I know nothing of finches (except that my feeder could lose 100 house finches and be none the worse for it). Geogre 12:45, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah - this one is fairly straightforward - related species, the family, even the european namesake are all discussed/linked in text, so why reduplicate?cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
- Since when are "See also" section considered unencyclopedic? It is even part of the MoS that there should be a section on Miscellaneous topics, or, in other words, a "See also" section? Universe=atomTalk•Contributions 11:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
- To answer the first point, many other editors, myself included, consider see also sections highly unencyclopaedic. Any relevant articles can be included in the main text. To answer a later point, the only avian navbox that currently exists is a higher order one dealing with important ornithology subjects and bird orders, so, as suggested, taht point can be ignored. Sabine's Sunbird talk 11:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Minor opposeSupport - I've cleaned up most if not all of the redundant and unnecessary links, and added some new informative ones. I've also given the article a bit of a copyedit. Some issues remain though. For me, the main issue is the references. They're kind of a mess. Sometimes the footnotes have unique identifiers, other times not. Sometimes the refs are in template format, sometimes not. Sometimes the whole names of authors are used, sometimes only their initials. Sometimes the last names are first, sometimes not. Sometimes things use all caps (ick), sometimes not (yay). I would really really like to see these cleaned up and standardized. I have no idea what's going on in Ref #7, there are weird random brackets for some reason that I can't find in the code. Ref #14 is title "San Diego Zoo" when in fact the link goes to the website of the San Diego Natural History Museum (they are different). Also, the prose seems to switch between British (recognise, no serial commas) and American English (color, molt, use of serial commas). It would read better if it was one or the other but I think the editors should decide which one. Oh, also it seems the section on brood parasitism by cowbirds is repeated... probably the first instance should be deleted as the second is more thorough. Anyway, as far as content goes I think it is very thorough and should definitely be featured once it is cleaned up a bit. Sheep81 08:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- Duplicated brood parasite section was my bad - I added the info without realiseing it had been mentioned before. I took out the first instance per your suggestion. Sabine's Sunbird talk 10:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- I fixed the author names (initials, last name first), put the all-caps into lower case, put everything into templates, and fixed the San Diego thing. What do you mean by "unique identifiers"? The fact that half of them are named "American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis)"? --Jude 00:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- Oh no, I meant that some of them used the "ref name=" tag and others just used "ref". Of all the issues I had with the refs, this was the most minor. I'm not sure why I mentioned it first, it really isn't a big deal and isn't going to stop me from supporting the article now that ya'll have made most of the changes I suggested. Great job bird editors! Sheep81 07:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- I fixed the author names (initials, last name first), put the all-caps into lower case, put everything into templates, and fixed the San Diego thing. What do you mean by "unique identifiers"? The fact that half of them are named "American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis)"? --Jude 00:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- Duplicated brood parasite section was my bad - I added the info without realiseing it had been mentioned before. I took out the first instance per your suggestion. Sabine's Sunbird talk 10:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support now that the minor issues have been addressed. I've done a bit to this, mostly adding some refs. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support Struck through above vote, as all fixes have now been made. Good job! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- Conditional Support. Seems comprehensive, from what I can tell. I do not understand the range map, however. I'd expect the year-round range to overlap the summer-only and winter-only areas. Is this a mistake, or do summer birds really migrate from Canada to Mexico while avoiding the northern U.S.? Please explain to a person not familiar with bird migration patterns (me). Firsfron of Ronchester 19:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- It was a mistake. I've fixed it now. Jude 22:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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 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 17:04, 10 June 2007.
Everybody knows that Saturn has rings. However the fact that all giant planets have the ring systems is far less known. This article is about the Jovian ring system, which is faint but interesting. So I think it deserves FA status. Ruslik 13:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support: However a few points -
- "In nineties the Jovian ring system was thoroughly investigated by the Galileo orbiter.[2]" - copyedit. In the ninties, the .....
- Note: "nineties" seems to be a valid word in my Webster's dictionary. I'm unfamiliar with "ninties". Is that a British-English spelling? — RJH (talk)
- I think the editor misspelled "nineties" and wanted to point out the missing "the." Awadewit Talk 15:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Lesson learnt for the day: When providing review comments, avoid making errors or else the review feedback will sound confusing. Yes, i wanted to point to the missing "the" and a second yes (admit) that it was not for "ninties" (or nineties as it should be rightly worded). Hope that clarifies. Kalyan 16:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. Thank you for the clarification. — RJH (talk) 14:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- Lesson learnt for the day: When providing review comments, avoid making errors or else the review feedback will sound confusing. Yes, i wanted to point to the missing "the" and a second yes (admit) that it was not for "ninties" (or nineties as it should be rightly worded). Hope that clarifies. Kalyan 16:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think the editor misspelled "nineties" and wanted to point out the missing "the." Awadewit Talk 15:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Done I inserted 'the'. Ruslik 12:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Note: "nineties" seems to be a valid word in my Webster's dictionary. I'm unfamiliar with "ninties". Is that a British-English spelling? — RJH (talk)
- "The rings were also observed by Hubble Space Telescope and from the ground.[3]" - when? 90s? or do they continue to observe them in which case the sentence should revert to present tense
- Done I added a phrase 'for the last 25 years' and changed tense to present perfect. Ruslik 12:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- The image in the lead section needs a better explanation than "The rings of Jupiter"
- Done
- Shouldn't the main ring section come after the halo ring section - so that it fits an order?
Kalyan 14:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)- This order (main->halo->gossamer) comes from the peer reviewed literature that I have read i.e. the order has been established long ago. I think it's unwise to change it now (see for instance [9]). Ruslik 12:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think the Exploration section should come under the lead as it is sort of a 'History' section. Will look more later. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 04:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- In other articles including some with FA status (Mars (planet), Jupiter (planet)) this section is positioned close to the end (or at the end) of the article. So, I think it is wise to follow the example. Ruslik 12:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think this section should be expanded a little bit. It should also include the time line of when the structures were really explored in addition to including only how they were explored. DSachan 07:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Done I added dates to the exploration section. Ruslik 14:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think this section should be expanded a little bit. It should also include the time line of when the structures were really explored in addition to including only how they were explored. DSachan 07:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- In other articles including some with FA status (Mars (planet), Jupiter (planet)) this section is positioned close to the end (or at the end) of the article. So, I think it is wise to follow the example. Ruslik 12:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Neutral -- can we get "about 15 μm" to be 15 plus-or-minus it's 95% confidence interval micrometers, please? BenB4 06:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Done I added 1σ confidence interval. Ruslik 12:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support - looks good to me; just one thing: can you fix up the 'halo ring' title? it's been offset oddly by the above picture. I'll read through in more detail later. --Paaerduag 05:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- I actually saw nothing odd with 'Halo ring' title, but appearance of wiki articles sometimes depends on screen resolution and your browser. Anyway I moved picture to the right. Is it good now? Ruslik 14:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support The article is good, comprehensive and well sourced. I support it. DSachan 23:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Object Sorry, 16 footnotes? no chance.c'mon, we've fished a good one.Kfc1864Cuba Libre! 11:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Er, ignore all above, please........c'mon, we've fished a good one.Kfc1864Cuba Libre! 09:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- How many footnotes should it have: 20, 1000 or 10100. Or can you specify number of footnotes per 1 kb of text? Ruslik 14:03, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment most of the footnotes are used multiple times. I count 135 actual citations. Bluap 17:57, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
- Done Although reviewer didn't specify a necessary number I added some additional footnotes and also expanded 'External links' section. I think the objection was addressed, taking into account that all footnotes are used many times (see comment above). Ruslik 12:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support - This article provides a great overview of the current state of knowledge of the Jovian ring system, its various components, and the types of observations that have been brought to bear on the subject. My only suggestion would be to switch the two images of the main ring by Galileo and New Horizons. It seems like the New Horizons image, showing the main ring at low- and high-phase angles would make a great companion to the section in the article on the appearance of the Main Ring in changing lighting conditions. Otherwise, this article has my support. --Volcanopele 08:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- Done I absolutely agree with your suggestion. So I switched images. Ruslik 08:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- Question: "In the nineties, the Jovian ring system was thoroughly investigated by the Galileo orbiter." You never mentioned the Jovian Ring system before. If that is the official name for the rings of Jupiter the name should be mentioned earlier, near the bolded article title so there is a lexical link. - Mgm|(talk) 09:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- Done I added an explanation of the Jovian ring system in the first sentence of the article. Ruslik 11:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose—1a. Here are examples just from the lead.
- "The largest planet in the Solar System – Jupiter possesses a planetary ring system called also the Jovian ring system." Not a spaced en dash, but a comma.
- MoS on captions: no period unless a proper sentence.
- Why repeat links? ("Solar System" twice at the top.)
- "nineties"—nah, "1990s", especially in the same sentence as Galileo.
- "the past 25 years", not the "last".
- Remove "very"—two of them.
- "It comprises four main components: a thick inner torus of particles known as the 'halo ring', a relatively bright, razor-thin 'main ring', and two wide, thick and faint outer 'gossamer rings' named for the moons of whose material they are composed: Amalthea and Thebe." This complex, nested sentence needs better punctuation. "It comprises four main components: a thick inner torus of particles known as the 'halo ring'; a relatively bright, razor-thin 'main ring'; and two wide, thick and faint outer 'gossamer rings', named for the moons of whose material they are composed: Amalthea and Thebe." MOS says to use italic for words as words.
- "High resolution images"—better with hyphen, IMO. Same for "high velocity impacts". Makes it easier for non-experts.
- "The Jovian rings have reddish color (except the halo ring, which is neutral or blue) in visible and near-infrared light." Start with "In visible and near-infrared light, the ..." and change parenthesis into comma. "a reddish color".
- I can see that parentheses will be the order of the day in the main text. Prefer commas or em/spaced en dashes, at least some of the time.
This is not good enough yet. Find a fresh copy-editor who's not familiar with the text. Tony 02:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment I understand that 1a is only problem that persists. I included corrections proposed above and made a proofreading request wikipedia:WikiProject_League_of_Copyeditors/proofreading. Ruslik 12:33, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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 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 17:04, 10 June 2007.
Evolution is one of the central concepts in science and this article is a core topic. This is a self-nomination and this article is an ex-FA that was delisted in February. The article has just completed a thorough peer-review. Although this article is 97 kb in size, this is due to a high level of referencing demanded by this occasionally contentious topic and it has only 48 kb of readable text. Reviewers concerned about neutral point of view issues may find their questions answered in the Talk:Evolution/FAQ. TimVickers 01:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Since this is turning into peer-review length (*cough* *cough*), I'm adding a count of supports, unresolved comments (comments that have been replied to or crossed out are considered resolved), objects: 20/0/1 (note: Adam's support is hard to see, in the middle of some crossed out stuff) [Moved it to start - Adam] Comment presumed by TimVickers: dated but not signed 12:22, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, well. It's going to emerge from this a much stronger article than the one that left the FARC, or last hit FAC. It's worth it. Adam Cuerden talk 01:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Comments. Started giving it a skim and so far it looks much improved since the last time I saw this article. A few thoughts:- 'However, the optimal mutation rate for an organism is a trade-off between short-term costs, such as the risk of cancer, and the long-term benefits of advantageous mutations' - either the point being made is more subtle than the one I think is being made, or this is written very awkwardly. It sounds like there is an 'optimum' mutation rate that will deliver benefits to one particular organism - ie, a specific individual - maybe plausible in a few cases, but I think what you're going for is adaptive mutation over time.
- Reworded to "Therefore, the optimal mutation rate for an species..." TimVickers 15:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- 'One possible advantage of genome duplication...' a) the phrase 'gene duplication' is better, lest someone think the entire genome is being multiplied, and b) 'possible'? I thought this was fairly well established.
- Reworded to "One advantage of gene duplication..." TimVickers 15:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Mentioning transposons is nice, but the short paragraph about them doesn't go into much detail, and I would think 'selfish genetic elements' might be of interest. Maybe it's a bit too specific, but the selfishness of transposons is sort of a classic example of the 'replicator' view of evolution. (Maybe also mention/link viroids?)
- This is covered in the "Natural selection" section, as discussing selfish DNA requires concepts that have not yet been introduced in the mutation section. TimVickers 15:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- There are a couple of 'hidden' wikilinks, eg, the text 'expansions into new habitats' is linked to founder effect. This is a matter of style but I always find that annoying when reading an article.
- This was in response to the FAR noting that there were too many parentheses in the article and one of the peer-reviewers commenting that the early parts used terms that were only defined later. I've chosen to try to use defining wikilinks (such as expansion into new habitats) in early sections where this concept is noted but not discussed, and then use the full link founder effect in the later, specialised section. TimVickers 15:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- While a very quick glance through the references suggests that you've chosen very good sources, I honestly think the text is too dense with footnotes. An example is 'Gene flow is the exchange of genes between populations, which are usually of the same species.' - why does this need a footnote? As a reader, I'd rather that the general or foundational references be separated from the thicket somehow (IIRC we put a little symbol on the important ones in RNA interference). Another thing to reduce clutter is to combine multiple sources into one note if none are repeated, eg, 'prokaryotes...constitute the vast majority of Earth's biodiversity'.
- The guide is that that cites are needed for "direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged." Most of these statements may seem innocuous from our scientific perspective, but not everybody sees this material in such an uncontroversial light. Prokaryotes refs condensed. TimVickers 15:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- At some point we seem to have evolved the notion that 50k of reference text belongs before the further reading/external links/etc. I've disagreed with this since the first time I noticed it, and this is a particularly strong case for putting some of the more accessible material where people will actually see it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Opabinia regalis (talk • contribs) 02:30, 1 June 2007
- I don't want to open that Pandora's box in a FAC, but this is a very good point, perhaps we could raise it on the Style Guide talk page? TimVickers 00:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
- Reading the WP:GTL I see there is no standard order for these sections. I have put the refs last, to improve readability. TimVickers 23:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comments. Re: "honestly think the text is too dense with footnotes." For an article that attracts controversy, I think it's better to err on the side of having too many footnotes, with those references going to high quality, reliable sources as selected in this article. In my experience, doing this helps make the article more stable.
- Regarding "Further reading, ...", see WP:LAYOUT. I think it's best to be consistent with the guideline and how other articles are done. --Aude (talk) 14:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Formatted links. TimVickers 15:05, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support sorry for taking so long, but this article has gotten even better since I last read it. My one minor quibble on re-reading is in the last section; the first paragraph mentions work on artificial selection but then diverts into genetic algorithms and design, and the second paragraph gets back to artificial selection as if it hadn't been mentioned before. I think it would be more intuitive to mention domestication, selective breeding, and genetic engineering first, and then genetic algorithms and artificial life, which are at a greater level of 'abstraction'. Opabinia regalis 02:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, good idea. Done. TimVickers 03:08, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Oppose.There are issues left to fix from the peer review, such as- the rooted tree of life. Is it just a glitch in the program you used that it has a root, Tim? I think you meant to produce an unrooted tree...
- Good point, the tree in the Science paper is unrooted, and this is the data used to construct the tree. Indeed, what would you use to root the tree of life? Image corrected by removing root and merging two lines. TimVickers 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- also some new issues, some of which I have brought up before
- the image illustrating range expansion in the gene flow section. Not the same thing at all!
- OK, replaced with a more biological image, which also addresses a comment that rather few animals were shown in the article. TimVickers 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Good idea, but still confusing! What seems to be shown in the image is seasonal migration, which may not lead to any gene flow at all, since animals tend to consistently return to the same breeding grounds. If you want a picture of an animal, this may be a better one:
- OK, replaced with a more biological image, which also addresses a comment that rather few animals were shown in the article. TimVickers 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- It's not perfect, since only one lion is shown, and they tend to group together to improve their chances of conquering a pride, but at least it is showing real geographic gene flow. Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Good suggestion. Image added. TimVickers 18:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- genetic drift image caption doesn't state how many replicates are being shown
- Changed to "A simulation" to make it clear this is a single simulation of 20 alleles under 2 conditions. TimVickers 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I added "unlinked" to that caption, assuming this to be correct - anything else would be confusing to the novice! Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Changed to "A simulation" to make it clear this is a single simulation of 20 alleles under 2 conditions. TimVickers 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- it seems that there was a decision to move the history section to the back of the article. I have previously raised the question of whether the "Modern research" section really belongs in this article rather than Evolutionary biology. This problem is now compounded by the fact that not only do the ModRes and Hist sections overlap in chronology, ModRes precedes Hist within the article, which I'd say is counter-intuitive at best. As an example, the modern synthesis is mentioned once in each context.
- Good point, Adam didn't like the History being at the front, perhaps if we move the "Modern research" section as the last section? TimVickers 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- ModRes seems to be a rather mixed bag that cannot hope to do justice to the diversity of fields within current evolutionary biology. A lot of the "sexy" topics would complain of non-inclusion: epigenetics, evo-devo etc. Where is palaeontology? Might this section have been intended as a sort of apologia along the lines of "oh btw, these are all the fields that didn't get mentioned in the article". Remember Haeckel's words, gentlemen - all politics, economics and other social sciences are merely applied biology! Are we going to include them all? I'm sure that an elegant solution to this problem is possible. The current one doesn't quite convince me.
- Looking at the article on photons there is a similar section here, but more focussed on the present rather than giving an essentially historical view. This might be a solution, since, as you say, there does seem to be too much overlap with the "History" section. My preferred solution would be to merge this material into the history section, so that the hisory would come right up to the present day, rather than stopping in the 1950s. TimVickers 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've tried this solution. Does this address your concern? TimVickers 16:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Excellent work! Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've tried this solution. Does this address your concern? TimVickers 16:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Looking at the article on photons there is a similar section here, but more focussed on the present rather than giving an essentially historical view. This might be a solution, since, as you say, there does seem to be too much overlap with the "History" section. My preferred solution would be to merge this material into the history section, so that the hisory would come right up to the present day, rather than stopping in the 1950s. TimVickers 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- If physical anthropology redirects to "biological anthropology", why not use the latter in the first place?
- Link changed. TimVickers 15:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- As a general remark, the "see also" section was removed because it was large and prone to growth. The editors are deluding themselves if they think they can stop growth. People will still insert garbage, and in the absence of a designated place to go, it will simply take new and surprising forms. Welcome to Wikipedia, the encyclopaedia everyone can edit. Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 02:38, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Oppose I can't get past Image:Evolution is change 3.svg which conveys no substantial information, and looks like modern art. Isn't there a better diagram to introduce this important article?BenB4 06:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC) Support -- I like the navbox. BenB4 13:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)- CommentYou oppose because of a picture? I didn't realise that aesthetics were our top priority. My bad. •Jim62sch• 14:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- This was discussed extensively and at length on the talk page here and here. If you have alternative suggestions, please post them on the article's talk page. TimVickers 15:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I wouldn't want to oppose on this basis but I agree that this image is confusing, and doesn't appear to depict evolution, since there is no process indicated. Without the caption there is no way evolution would occur to you upon seeing this picture, and I think it is nice if the top-right image conveys as much as possible even without any text. What I would have in mind as the ideal image would be those pictures where a monkey in a series of stages turns into a human (or a similar image with good science behind it). Christopher Parham (talk) 20:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I agree, this image is just confusing and weird. What about some king of "tree of life" style image with pictures of a few animals at the nodes, or a comparative image the two colours of the famous Peppered moth or something like that (although maybe that's more natural selection than "evolution" per se...) Tomgreeny 21:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I wouldn't want to oppose on this basis but I agree that this image is confusing, and doesn't appear to depict evolution, since there is no process indicated. Without the caption there is no way evolution would occur to you upon seeing this picture, and I think it is nice if the top-right image conveys as much as possible even without any text. What I would have in mind as the ideal image would be those pictures where a monkey in a series of stages turns into a human (or a similar image with good science behind it). Christopher Parham (talk) 20:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- This was discussed extensively and at length on the talk page here and here. If you have alternative suggestions, please post them on the article's talk page. TimVickers 15:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comments
On the talk page, the FAQ should probably be at the top so that it's more noticeable. Though, I notice that Sandy usually puts the FAC template on the top of the talk page, so maybe the FAQ box can be listed second.- The evolution navbox should probably be at the top, above the graphic so readers can jump to whatever subarticle they want without needing to scroll down. --Aude (talk) 14:42, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I'm traveling and haven't been able to run through all the new noms to make sure everything's straight; that's one heck of a talk page, so anything you all can do to clean it up would be good :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think switching the position of the navbox and the lead image would be helpful for readers. The navbox has a useful purpose to help people find information. The switch would also help with the navbox alignment problem I'm having (due to my screen resolution) - see right. Aligning templates in Wikipedia can be an annoyance, but it looks sloppy on my screen. If I resize my browser window, the navbox alignment problem goes away, but I have to scroll down to find the navbox. --Aude (talk) 21:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Put the current image in the template to solve the alignment issue. Alternative lead images are being discussed on the talk page. TimVickers 21:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I actually fixed this before Tim did. Reverted his changes. Samsara (talk • contribs) 22:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support The navbox looks good now, and the rest of the article is excellent. --Aude (talk) 14:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- I actually fixed this before Tim did. Reverted his changes. Samsara (talk • contribs) 22:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment
- I feel that "Human activities are probably the cause of the ongoing extinction event" is probably somewhat PoV. Whilst we're certainly responsible for a lot of extinction now, at the start of the event 10Ka, blaming Homo for everything is unsatisfactory. Verisimilus T 16:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Reworded to "Human activities are probably the primary cause..." TimVickers 16:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment There's always a certain background rate of extinction. That wouldn't qualify as an event. An "event" is a series of extinctions above and beyond the normal background rate over a short period of time, which is what we have now. So while it is not fair to blame all extinctions in the last 10Ma on humans, our species is almost unquestionably responsible for the current extinction event. Sheep81 16:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Er... ka, not Ma. Sheep81 16:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I'm still a little uncomfortable with it. "Primary cause" still leaves it sounding like humans initiated it; we're the primary reason that it's continuing now, but there may well have been an event even had humans disappeared along the way. A small point and not worth failing FA on, but could still use tidying up. Verisimilus T 19:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment There's always a certain background rate of extinction. That wouldn't qualify as an event. An "event" is a series of extinctions above and beyond the normal background rate over a short period of time, which is what we have now. So while it is not fair to blame all extinctions in the last 10Ma on humans, our species is almost unquestionably responsible for the current extinction event. Sheep81 16:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Reworded to "Human activities are now the primary cause of the ongoing extinction event..." and additional ref dealing with the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions added. TimVickers 20:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- That's great. Verisimilus T 08:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Reworded to "Human activities are probably the primary cause..." TimVickers 16:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support. This is the version of the article that the largest number of editors ever have been able to agree on. I have no doubt that this beats any other encyclopaedia out there by miles, and any remaining differences in point of view are inevitable in a subject that is still being researched. Thanks are due to many editors who have worked on this article over the years - recently Tim Vickers and Adam Cuerden, but also at one point Silence, who, iirc, started shaking up the article after it had been demoted from FA, and left lingering for some time. I also claim my small share of that pie. :) Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:13, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support. Excellent article on a (regrettably) contentious topic. Nice to see it resurrected from the "former FA" bin - kudos all around. -- MarcoTolo 23:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support. All that hard work paid off. It is far more readable. The "hard to understand/current reasearch topics" deleted stuff should be found a home elsewhere. It was good stuff, but this article reads better without it. WAS 4.250 00:12, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment - That material was not deleted, it was either merged into the History section, or mentioned in the relevant section of the main article. TimVickers 00:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Not true. The article is far shorter. Epigenetic, complex iterations, lateral gene flow and other stuff has been removed, some before you started helping with this latest push. Probably most of it does exist elsewhere on wikipedia - I know the stuff I added that was deleted is. WAS 4.250 00:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support. Strong article, one of WP's best, which is surprising considering it's a hotbutton topic. FeloniousMonk 17:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support
CommentsThere are still a few things, mostly minor, to fix. I suppose this counts as a weak object, but I don't think it'll take long to fix - After all, the list I gave in the peer review, with much more major changes, was pretty much all dealt with.:Couple tiny points, but nothing worth objecting over. Adam Cuerden talk 18:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)My support is now unilateral. Adam Cuerden talk 14:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)Heredity section:"Inheritance in organisms occurs through discrete traits, which are one particular characteristic of the organism." - That's a bit awkward, and it's a little hard to say traits are actually discrete. Now, it must be said that "gene" and "trait" and so on are some of the most woolly and ill-defined terms in biology, but I'd rather say something like "Inheritance in organisms occurs through genes, segments of DNA which have some distinct effect on the organism's traits."
- This wording does not define "Trait", which we need to do. TimVickers 03:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Similarly "Most hereditary traits are inherited through Mendelian inheritance, where offspring have the trait of either one or the other of their parents, but not a mixture of the two traits." - I believe co-dominance is Mendelian, so that's confusing. And is that actually true? I mean, for multi-gene traits, it's false, and most traits are affected by more than one gene. We tend to simplify it for teaching Mendelian genetics, but we need to remember we're dealing with the simplest variety, not the most common.
- Solved by removing the sentence, which was not needed. TimVickers 03:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Recombination:Minor point, but we're italicising "linked" here. Should we be doing that for all new terms we're defining, or should we unitalicise it, or what?
- Reworded
Er, is it? I mean in "In asexual organisms, genes will be inherited together, they are linked" Adam Cuerden talk 00:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)Never mind, I got it. Adam Cuerden talk 01:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Reworded
"However, the recombination rate is not very high, with approximately one recombination event per 1,000,000 base pairs occurring in humans." What does "not very high" mean in this context? I mean, per DNA, Human Chromosome #1 is 220 million base pairs long, so that's 220 crossing over events on it.
- Removed "high/low" and just make statement of rate and result.
We probably should mention that errors in crossing over can result in deletion or duplication of a section of DNA. It connects with the discussion in Mutation.
- Added.
- Mechanisms:<
The opening paragraph could be a *little* simpler:"There are three basic mechanisms of evolutionary change: natural selection, genetic drift, and gene flow. Natural selection is the non-random selection for genes that favor survival and reproduction. genetic drift is the random sampling of a generation's genes during reproduction, causing random changes in the frequency of alleles, and gene flow is the transfer of genetic material within and between populations." This isn't bad, but might be a little difficult.
- Mechanisms:<
- Split into 3 sentences, condensed a little.
- "...as well as the strength of selection" - Is this clear enough, coming before the description of natural selection?
Natural selection: Right. This is the third - fourth if you count the diagram next to it - explanation of natural selection (the others being the lead and the brief description in "Mechanisms" just above it), and that is not a problem in the least: It's a very important concept. It's very clever to explain it a different way this time.There is one thing I'm not sure of, though:- "
Natural selection within a population can be subcategorized into three different modes: directional selection (a shift in the mean trait value over time);[48] disruptive selection (selection for extreme trait values on both ends, or "tails" of the distribution, often resulting in a bimodal distribution and selection against the mean); and stabilizing selection (also called purifying selection — selection against extreme trait values on both ends, and a decrease in variance around the mean.)" - Can we simplify the language a bit?
- "
- Ugh, that was knotty and gnarly. Reworded and split into separate sentences. TimVickers 15:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
"...and often results in a distribution with two peaks" - I think we need either an illustration or to try and phrase it so that it's not describing a graph. Adam Cuerden talk 18:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Done, used height as a concrete example. TimVickers 03:17, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Genetic driftThis is picky, but is it necessary to say "allele" twelve times in the first paragraph?
- Cut to 9 times. TimVickers 00:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Outcomes:"However, in a few cases speciation events may involve the rapid development of genuinely novel characteristics, such as hybrid genomes and changes in development, and here micro- and macroevolution can be distinct." - Is this a very bad explanation of punctuated equilibrium? If not, what is this referring to?
- I'm trying to condense reference 78 here and use speciation mechanisms that are discussed later as examples.
- I can't follow the description then, I fear. I'll poke at the reference. Adam Cuerden talk 18:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Replaced it with more convrete examples from Gould. Adam Cuerden talk 08:51, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- I can't follow the description then, I fear. I'll poke at the reference. Adam Cuerden talk 18:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- I'm trying to condense reference 78 here and use speciation mechanisms that are discussed later as examples.
Do we have to discuss microevolution and macroevolution? They're such misunderstood terms, and we don't use them anywhere else in the article, so it's to some extent just teaching jargon, and jargon that has gone rather strongly out of favour.
- My feeling is that if we don't include them and describe them accurately, people will continue to be confused by these terms and turn to less reliable sources. As they are really not that important, I didn't give them a section to themselves but just defined them at the beginning of the relevant section. TimVickers 15:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Fair enough. Adam Cuerden talk 18:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- My feeling is that if we don't include them and describe them accurately, people will continue to be confused by these terms and turn to less reliable sources. As they are really not that important, I didn't give them a section to themselves but just defined them at the beginning of the relevant section. TimVickers 15:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
The paragraph beginning "It is a common misconception that evolution always results in "progress"..." is a little awkward. It takes much longer than it should to explain its point. (Aside: Five references? Why on earth does it need five different references to explain a fairly basic point?)
- Cut 2 refs. (you wouldn't believe how contentious this point was on the talk page). Also shortened slightly. TimVickers 01:12, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
AdaptationsSeven uses of "adaptation" in the first paragraph seems a little much.
- Cut to 5. TimVickers 15:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
"Other idiosyncratic anatomical features, such as the panda's "thumb"," - This is meaningless without explaining the thumb is a modified wrist bone, etc.
- Reworded to be more concrete. TimVickers 01:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure this section is really as good as it could be. For instance, the Panda's thumb is made out of a wrist bone because the bear paw has adapted the finger bones in such a way that would make it very difficult to adapt one of them into a thumb, so an idiosyncratic wrist bone structure is used instead. Can this section's view of adaptation explain why this idiosyncratic structure was necessary? Also, it's not very well organised, and maybe a bit repetitious. It's not awful, but it could be better.
Co-evolution and cooperation:Needs more explanation. For instance, "When the interaction is between species, the evolution of one species can exert a selective pressure on a second species. This second species can then adapt and, in turn, exert selective pressure on the first species. This mutually-reinforcing selection produces co-evolution.[100] In co-evolution, pairs of organisms such as mutualists, a pathogen and a host, or a predator and its prey undergo matched adaptations." is trying a little too hard to be generic, and is also a little over-wordy. Clarify, and work in the examples a bit better."An example is the production of tetrodotoxin in the rough-skinned newt and the evolution of tetrodotoxin resistance in the common garter snake." - Note this sentence nowhere says that the snake eats the newt. This makes the point being illustrated far more opaque than it needs to be.
- Reworded to "An example is the production of tetrodotoxin in the rough-skinned newt and the evolution of tetrodotoxin resistance in its predator, the common garter snake."
- Re-written lead to co-evolution. TimVickers 15:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
The explanation of Mycorrhiza and their symbiosis in plants again fails to explain the relationship very well. And what's the next line after this classic example of symbiosis? "However, not all interactions involve conflict."
- Re-written explanation. TimVickers 15:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
"However, not all interactions involve conflict. One of the striking features of the natural world is that genes, cells, and organisms cooperate to form higher-order entities.[105][106] For example, cells in animals sacrifice their reproduction to increase the fitness of the entire organism. Here, cells respond to specific signals that instruct them to either grow or kill themselves. If cells ignore these signals their uncontrolled growth can cause cancer.[22] Organisms cooperate as this can provide benefits through kin selection and group selection, as well as direct, indirect and network reciprocity.[107]" - This awkward explanation of the cooperative origin of multicellularity needs taken out back and shot.
- Taken out back, shot. Or, rather, moved to the taslk page: There's material in here that should *definitely* appear in "Evolution of life". Adam Cuerden talk 01:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Tried for a new version. TimVickers 16:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- New version looks good. Adam Cuerden talk 18:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Speciation:First paragraph debunks a creationist claim explicitly ("if humans evolved from monkeys, monkeys should no longer exist."). This is a pointless and rather indulgent diversion.
- I've got this one. Adam Cuerden talk 01:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
It's a bit odd to do the discussion of punctuated equilibirium as an aside.
- There was a proposal to have a section on patterns in evolution, but this was rejected on the talk page. Since punct. evol. relates to evolutionary chage occurring specifically with speciation, I thought this was the next best place.
- Well, better than nothing.
- There was a proposal to have a section on patterns in evolution, but this was rejected on the talk page. Since punct. evol. relates to evolutionary chage occurring specifically with speciation, I thought this was the next best place.
"Here, around the mine, etc." is awkward writing. Try "There is etc. around the mine"
- Done
- "
as well as character displacement, which causes two species to become more distinct" - saying what something causes is not the same as saying what something is. It's better to say what it is when introducing a term.
- "
- Done
Perhaps sympatric speciation would benefit from some of the work in Talk:Evolution/Gene flow? Adam Cuerden talk 01:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Never knew that was there! TimVickers 16:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- It's my rewrite of gene flow that was cut down pretty heavily to make the final product. Some of the illustrations could be useful.
- Never knew that was there! TimVickers 16:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
"as in cabbage" / "as in wheat" - I'm not sure the cabbage one is entirely justified, as cabbage is one species, brassica oleracea. It would be nice to have a little more on wheat. Adam Cuerden talk 18:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Anti-cabbage prejudice is sadly prevalent, but add more on wheat if this will make you happy. TimVickers 19:17, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- I tweaked it a bit. You may want to re-edit. Adam Cuerden talk 09:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- Anti-cabbage prejudice is sadly prevalent, but add more on wheat if this will make you happy. TimVickers 19:17, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Extinction:"The intermittent mass extinctions are also important, but instead of acting as a selective force they drastically reduce diversity in a non-specific manner and may therefore promote a burst of adaptive radiation and speciation in survivor" - Adaptive radiation is not explained.
- Reworded to "...promote a burst of rapid evolution and speciation in survivors."
- Origin of life
"Self-catalytic" and "protocells" would do well to be explained.
- Origin of life
- Reworded.
Common descent:"All organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor or ancestral gene pool" - I'm not sure ancestral gene pool applies to the last common ancestor. It's more of the ancestors after life began to diverge, isn't it?
- OK, OK, I'll cut the "gene pool" :)
Why a deviation about The Origin of Species?
- Good point, reworded to "The common descent of organisms was first deduced from four simple facts about organisms."
"prokeryotes" should be "prokaryotes"
- Done
Evolution of life"Evolution did not produce rapid changes in morphology," - What does this mean in the context of prokaryotes and protista? Because there's certainly many and diverse differences. Indeed, can we actually say anything of the kind from indistinct microfossils?
- Well, as we don't see any major changes in the outward appearance of the fossils we have, this is all we can really say. There might have been major internal changes, but this wouldn't show in the fossil record. TimVickers 17:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Do we really have the information to say anything, then?
- Well, as we don't see any major changes in the outward appearance of the fossils we have, this is all we can really say. There might have been major internal changes, but this wouldn't show in the fossil record. TimVickers 17:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Ordering is unclear. The origin of eukaryotes must come before the origin of multicellular eukaryotes.
- Reworded.
- I wasn't entirely clear what I was referring to, but I got it. Adam Cuerden talk 18:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Reworded.
"ancient bacteria being engulfed by the ancestors of eukaryotic cells" - Just to check, is this the only theory? Because thought there was also a colonial theory.
- The problem here is that I don't distinguish between the evolution of eukaryotes and the evolution of multicellularity. Reworded to deal with this. TimVickers 17:29, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Don't use "mya", that's pointless jargon.
- Cut.
"However, despite this apparent progression," - it's only an apparent progression because it's being written that way. I mean, really, "Amphibians first appeared around 300 mya, followed by early amniotes, then mammals around 200 mya and birds around 100 mya (both from "reptile"-like lineages). The human genus arose around 2 mya, with the earliest anatomically-modern humans developing in Africa 100–200 thousand years ago" - there's no reason to describe it that way (with humans at the top, no less), unless you want to make a progressive statement. Maybe if you threw in a few other groups to show other phyla were also evolving at the same time, and skipped the Homo and human...
- Good suggestion. Minor genus deleted. TimVickers 18:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- That works well! Adam Cuerden talk 18:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Good suggestion. Minor genus deleted. TimVickers 18:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
"However, what changes we can gather from the limited fossil record were extremely slow." - Until when? Adam Cuerden talk 18:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
History of evolutionary thoughtNot sure I like the combination of the fields of study with this. It makes the fields of study impossible to find in the ToC.
- New arrangement. TimVickers 18:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, that'll give you something to work on. And probably me too. Adam Cuerden talk 00:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Weak objectThis has come a long way. Kudos to all for the hard work. I do have a few minor comments and one big concern.Lead: occurs because organisms with these advantageous traits produce more offspring I would add "more successful offspring".
- Reworded to "This occurs because organisms with these advantageous traits produce pass more copies of the traits on to the next generation."
- Mutation:
One advantage of gene duplication is that overlapping or redundant function in multiple copies of genes allows alleles to be retained that would otherwise have deleterious effects, thus increasing genetic diversity Reword "deleterious effects" into something more understandable without a dictionary.
- Mutation:
- Replaced with "harmful"
Mobile genetic elements, transposons, make up a major fraction of the genomes of plants and animals and may have been important in the evolution of genomes "Mobile genetic elements" is supposed to define transposons I think. However the phrase is not very meaningful. It would be better to let people follow link if you cannot describe in a more understandable fashion. "A major fraction of genomes" is very vague and meaningless.BTW I think you should have introduced "genome" in the heridty section. The article jumps from discussing genotype to genome and I don't think most readers will pick up the difference on their own. "may have been important in the evolution of genomes" The article never again touches on the evolution of genomes. This needs to link to an appropriate article on the subject or else be cut out. Note:'Down in "Natural selection"; transposons are simply defined as "genes".
- Reworded to "Sequences of DNA that can move about the genome, such as transposons,..."
- Added link to genome in correct part of hereditary section "Inherited traits are controlled by genes and the complete set of genes within an organism's genome is called its genotype"
- "
Another effect of these mobile DNA sequences is that when they move within a genome they can mutate or delete existing genes and thereby produce evolutionary change and diversity" They really "produce evolutionary change" whenever they mutate or delete a gene? I think that is a bit too strong of a statement.
- "
- Evolutionary change under the broad definition we use in this article is any change in genetic material, this does fit the definition. TimVickers 19:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think the broad definition we are using is any change in heritable genetic material in a populaltion . . . Of course most people will read it correctly from the context it is just too strong of a statement for my taste.--BirgitteSB 23:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Reworded to "...they can mutate or delete existing genes and thereby produce genetic diversity." TimVickers 03:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Evolutionary change under the broad definition we use in this article is any change in genetic material, this does fit the definition. TimVickers 19:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Recombination: In addition, recombination can produce individuals with new and advantageous gene combinations and, due to errors in crossing over, also duplicate genes, allowing the copy to evolve new functions. When alleles cannot be separated by recombination, such as in mammalian Y chromosomes, deleterious mutations accumulate. These positive effects of recombination are balanced by the fact that it can cause mutations such as chromosomal deletions and may also separate gene combinations that have been successful in previous generations I think it would be hard to write these ideas less clearly than above. Laymen's terms: "Recombination is benificial because it increases the diversity of the genome which leads to variations which can be adapted by the popluation as whole when they are useful. Recombination is problamatic because it can introduce genetic diseases to the population by messing up parts of the genome which have worked well in past generations." The key to get across is the difference bewteen sexual and asexual organisms is recognizable as the greater diversity and the higher incidence of genetic diseases within sexual populations. Try to explain hows of recombination in the first paragraph and don't use terms like "the copy" and "deleterious" (someone writing this article realy liked that word).
- Unfortunately, my writing style occasionally has deleterious effects on comprehensibility. :) Tried for a clear and less convoluted rewrite. TimVickers 03:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Big concernAdaption: I have never been happy with this section. The lead sentance on this: Over very long periods of time, adaptations are produced by a combination of the continuous production of small, random changes in traits, followed by natural selection of the variants best-suited for their environment is acutually slighty better explantion than the beginning of the section. Exaptation is still a major problem for me. I don't understand what is left that qualifies as an adaption if exaptations are not adaptations. The reference for that sentence is a paper on evolutionary psychology which is not exactly a generalized discussion of evolution. I have a real problem with the section saying penguin flippers are not an adaption and bat wings are. I think this is an internal contradiction that must be fixed. I would also love to see just one example in this section of an adaption which is not focused on a physical trait.
- Looking out the window, I saw a squirrel running along my phone line - a behavioural exaptation. Used this as an example! TimVickers 16:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support exaptation discussion is no longer an internal contradiction!--BirgitteSB 17:12, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Looking out the window, I saw a squirrel running along my phone line - a behavioural exaptation. Used this as an example! TimVickers 16:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Co-evolution: The co-operation side needs to have the language strengthened. If a reader does not know what a "mutualist" is, the fact that example includes suppressing the plants immune system and directly follows a predation prey example could lead to them not realizing co-operation is being discussed.
- Rewritten. TimVickers 03:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Speciation: I really would like to see that image altered to use the same terms as the text. Having to translate habitat to niche, formation of polyploid species to genetic polymorphism, etc is going to lose some readers.
- Done. Thanks to User:Fvasconcellos. TimVickers 16:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Extinction:This could produce "species selection" as an additional level of natural selection This level was already mentioned in the natural selection section so it cannot be said to be additional or treated as a new revelation.
- Rewritten. TimVickers 03:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
General tightness: Throughout the article I feel opportunities are missed to refer back to the ideas previously discussed in the terms that were originally used. Fixing that would really improve the article. Tightness is what makes the speciation section so good; it constantly describes the information in terms of natural selection, genetic drift, etc. A few examples. These multicellular forms of life were the eukaryotes and came from ancient bacteria being engulfed by the ancestors of eukaryotic cells, which allowed endosymbiotic associations between the bacteria and the host cell This was discussed as co-evolution or co-operation previously not symbiotic association. The intermittent mass extinctions are also important, but instead of acting as a selective force they drastically reduce diversity in a non-specific manner and may therefore promote a burst of adaptive radiation and speciation in survivors Can we describe this in terms of what was said in the speciation section? Polyploids also have more genetic diversity, which allows them to resist the effects of inbreeding "Effects of inbreeding" is basically the negative side of "Recombination" discussed earlier using new terms.
- Reworded the examples you found. Will search for others. TimVickers 04:14, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
See below: If we have to have these can they link to the correct subsection?--BirgitteSB 15:28, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Comment 2 issues - I agree about the odd image with the yellow and red boxes but concede it is possibly the most global or generic way to get the point across. I thought may have been a little better with some critter in it but not sure either way. However my main concern was I recalled a few years ago that fossil evidence seemed to show a stepwise or staged development in species not gradual evolution per se. It is a long article but couldn't see this mentioned apart from under peripatric speciation. is it prominent enough? cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 21:55, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- As this is still an important theory, I've split this out as a separate paragraph in the speciation section. TimVickers 21:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support - 'nuff said.cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 21:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Comment: " Large chromosomal rearrangements do not necessarily change gene function, but can result in reproductive isolation.[2] An example of chromosomal rearrangements is the fusion of two chromosomes in the Homo genus that produced human chromosome 2; this fusion did not occur in the chimpanzee lineage, and chimpanzees retain two separate chromosomes.[3] However, chromosomal rearrangements do not appear to have driven the divergence of the human and chimpanzee lineages.[4]" - Could we choose an example where it actually did drive speciation? Wallabies or something? Adam Cuerden talk 23:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- The first sentence there isn't a good summary of the reference, this is closer to the last reference in content. Clarified by cutting the second sentence. I don't know of any examples, this idea may have gone out of favour - can you find a good one? TimVickers 04:14, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- I vaguely remeber something about it driving wallaby speciation, but the first few references I found were journals I ddn't have access to. Adam Cuerden talk 11:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've rearranged it a bit. Adam Cuerden talk 21:26, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- The first sentence there isn't a good summary of the reference, this is closer to the last reference in content. Clarified by cutting the second sentence. I don't know of any examples, this idea may have gone out of favour - can you find a good one? TimVickers 04:14, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: Right now, I think this is a great article. However, on my browser, the article takes an inordinate amount of time to load. It is by far the only article on Wikipedia with which I experience this particular problem. I want to make further comments about the article including my strong support. But I wanted to start with that. Orangemarlin 03:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- With some condensation, cutting two unnecessary refs and the removal of the paragraph below, the size of the article is now under 100 kb. TimVickers 03:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
*Object I hate to do it because most of this article is absolutely superb but the history of evolutionary thought section has a real problem with its last paragraph:
- Physical anthropology emerged in the late 19th century from physiology, the study of human osteology, and the fossils of other hominids.[157] At that time, anthropologists were unsure if this data supported evolution, because skeletal remains revealed temporal and spatial variation among hominids, but Darwin had not explained the mechanisms that produced variation. However, with the rise of the modern synthesis, evolution became the conceptual framework for physical anthropology.[157] In addition to studying fossils, these scientists began to population genetics in humans, creating the field of biological anthropology.
To begin with I assume it shold be "began to apply population genetics to humans", but much more fundamentally I can't figure out quite what the rest of the paragraph is saying. The main problem with the study of human evolution in the 19th century was the lack of any useful hominid fossils. Until the discovery of Java Man in 1891 all they had were modern man and Neanderthals (a near contemporary of modern man). The first African hominid fossil would not be found until 1924. I can understand why you want a paragraph on thinking about human evolution, but I think you need to make it clearer or cut it.Rusty Cashman 22:26, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Good point, as we don't discuss human evolution in the History of life section, I don't see the need to discuss this specialised subject in the section on the history of evolutionary thought in general. I've cut it. TimVickers 22:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Support I had one other minor issue with the mutation section but I just fixed it. An encyclopedia article on a topic as complicated as evolution can never be more than an overview, but this is an excellent one that gives concise yet informative summaries of difficult technical issues such as natural selection, mutation and genetic drift. Nice work. Rusty Cashman 06:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment — I haven't read the entire article, but I had a few quibbles with the lead section:
- The mid-section of this sentence seems improper: "This occurs because organisms with these advantageous traits produce pass more copies of the traits on to the next generation"
- Typo, fixed.
- Perhaps I'm being dense, but it seem like this sentence could be clearer: "...genetic drift produces random changes in the traits of a population and is caused by the fact that there is an element of chance in which organisms in a population successfully reproduce." It seems to be telling me that reproduction itself is the root cause of genetic drift, rather than mutations. Does it instead want to tell me that some random changes can occur that will still allow successful reproduction?
- Genetic drift is indeed the product of reproduction. It would still occur in the complete abscence of mutation.
- Perhaps then my misunderstand is from the two possible interpretations of "in which"? Is it referring to the randomality of the possible pairings, some combinations of which result in outliers? Or just changes introduced during a random subset of all the reproductions? I guess I could read ahead in the article and find out, but really I shouldn't need to (per WP:Lead section.) — RJH (talk)
- Changed to "...genetic drift produces random changes in which traits are most common in a population, and is caused by the fact that there is an element of chance in which organisms succeed in reproducing." TimVickers 22:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- To me the "in which" can mean a subset of the organisms, or it could be in use as a conjunction. For example,"...there is an element of chance in which of the organisms succeed in reproducing...," eliminates the ambiguity. — RJH (talk) 16:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
- Good suggestion, Done. TimVickers 17:02, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
- To me the "in which" can mean a subset of the organisms, or it could be in use as a conjunction. For example,"...there is an element of chance in which of the organisms succeed in reproducing...," eliminates the ambiguity. — RJH (talk) 16:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
- Genetic drift is indeed the product of reproduction. It would still occur in the complete abscence of mutation.
- "...separated into different populations ... becoming two separate new species." Two or more perhaps?
- Changed to "... becoming separate new species." TimVickers 21:37, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks. — RJH (talk) 21:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support Length of article and citations is understandable given the amount of incredulity in some parts of the world. A minor issue is the use of two portraits sandwiching text in the history section. Shyamal 01:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
- I moved Mendel down next to his paragraph. Adam Cuerden talk 02:12, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support - It's finally good enough, let's hope it can maintain some stability. Number and type of pictures is good, the organization is logical and it's clear for a non-scientific audience. I'd love to give it the armour of a stable version, I suppose in the mean time, we'll fight the good fight. Cheers. pschemp | talk 21:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support. What a beautiful article! Kudos to all involved (Adam, Quadzilla, MarcoTolo, Samsara, Verisimilus, The Rest, and especially Tim, who put in a sickening amount of work). I particularly think the images illustrate the topic clearly, particularly now that the "Tetris" image has been removed. The text seems accessible to the average reader. The reference section appears to be mostly from peer-reviewed journals and other scholarly sources. The problems I had with the article during its peer review all seem to have been fixed. I did correct one error I found: Tarbosaurus isn't a species, it's a genus. Dinosaurs are known mostly by their generic (genus-level) names (the only major exception is T. rex).
- You folks have done a wonderful job on this article. Once it becomes Featured, don't let it degrade again! Firsfron of Ronchester 07:45, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- The wording isn't clear, but I don't think the caption was referring to Tarbosaurus when it said "The non-avian dinosaur species died in a mass extinction" but rather meant something like "All non-avian dinosaurs died out in a mass extinction." For one thing, Tarbosaurus is early Maastrictian so it didn't die out in a mass extinction. I've changed the caption for clarity. Sheep81 08:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- That's how I read it. New phrasing seems good and much clearer. Adam Cuerden talk 08:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- The new phrasing is much better, as then it's clear the article isn't referring to Tarbosaurus as a species. I had assumed that it was, in part because the wording was confusing, and partly because during peer review I noticed the same problem with Archaeopteryx. But that's no longer in the article. So, looks good to me. Firsfron of Ronchester 23:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- That's how I read it. New phrasing seems good and much clearer. Adam Cuerden talk 08:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- The wording isn't clear, but I don't think the caption was referring to Tarbosaurus when it said "The non-avian dinosaur species died in a mass extinction" but rather meant something like "All non-avian dinosaurs died out in a mass extinction." For one thing, Tarbosaurus is early Maastrictian so it didn't die out in a mass extinction. I've changed the caption for clarity. Sheep81 08:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support, amazing accomplishment, and in only four months. I'm awed that you all were able to keep the article size within guidelines, and clear out EL and See also, but not surprised at the TimVickers quality of referencing. (Tim, what took you so long? Note, if re-promoted, remember to re-categorize at WP:FFA to bottom of page.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:40, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment I remember this article at FAR - TimVickers seems like a wizkid turning this around. I don't relish Raul's job of reading this specific FAC though given all the comments.. LuciferMorgan 08:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support I'm very pleased with how the revision of this article has gone. I made a series of suggestions for improvements that TimVickers (especially) and Adam Cuerden carefully reviewed and acted on (or didn't act on in the case of my less-than-bright suggestions). One is always bound to have remaining quibbles with an article of this length, but mine are just that, quibbles. Well done! --Plumbago 15:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support. Detailed, well-illustrated, well-maintained. --Itub 18:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Is Wonderful Life really a good introductory text to evolution? It's been years since I read it, but I don't recall it being particularly educational and it obviously spends a great deal of time on the Burgess shale rather than general principles. If I was to include a Gould text, I'd probably use Full House, which is more accessible and possibly more on-target for what we're going for. Given Gould's status among modern evolutionary theorists, I don't know if having two of his texts in the list would represent current theory. Just a quibble. 64.235.97.146 20:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- I would add to that discussion the question whether anyone has read Charlesworth and Charlesworth, Evolution: A Very Short Introduction. At 168 pages, it may or may not be the shortest one out there from such high-calibre authors. Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:42, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've not read that, Wonderful life is intended not as in introduction to evolution, which is covered in the first two books, but as an introduction to the material covered in the "Evolutionary History of Life" section. It is rather specific though, are there any more general books for the non-specialist reader that cover this material? TimVickers 20:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- Steve Jones' Almost Like A Whale has 519 pages, Blind Watchmaker 368 pp., Wonderful Life 352, and Endless Forms Most Beautiful 288 pp. I haven't looked at all the ones in Introduction to evolution, but it strikes me that the Charlesworth contribution might be the only one to cover it all in such short space (Almost Like A Whale is about speciation, Wonderful Life about fossils, Endless Forms about Evo-Devo, and Blind Watchmaker (iirc) mostly about simulations). Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- What about "Andrew H. Knoll Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth.? Anybody read it? TimVickers 21:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- Pass. Sorry. Still 304 pages as per amazon. Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- Samsara - The Blind Watchmaker includes two sets of simulations (evolving a phrase from Shakespeare; Dawkins' evo-devo biomorphs model), but is far from dominated by them. They illustrate a single chapter (of 11) entitled "Accumulating Small Change". Other chapters cover topics such as adaptationism, punk-eek, sexual selection, other evolutionary models, cladistics and taxonomy. I've not read it, but I thought Almost Like A Whale was intended to "update" Origin, so presumably isn't just about speciation? Regarding Wonderful Life, Tim is right, it's not supposed to be an intro to evolutionary theory, but surely Gould has something more general in his canon? I've only read WL and his essays. Anyway, it sounds like we should add Evolution: A Very Short Introduction, but we should certainly retain others (not least those with articles about them). Length isn't everything (so I'm told). Cheers, --Plumbago 07:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Added. TimVickers 15:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Pass. Sorry. Still 304 pages as per amazon. Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've not read that, Wonderful life is intended not as in introduction to evolution, which is covered in the first two books, but as an introduction to the material covered in the "Evolutionary History of Life" section. It is rather specific though, are there any more general books for the non-specialist reader that cover this material? TimVickers 20:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've copy-edited the lead, which shows that a lot of work remains to be done. I'll continue to go through what will be an excellent article, because I'm keen to see the topic given the best airing possible. Sorry, there's a typo in my edits, I see. Is it in US or Br Eng? It's hard to find distinguishing features, so I guessed US (my favoring). Tony 02:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you. It is US English. TimVickers 03:24, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for the copy-edit, Tony. TimVickers 13:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- The new version states Natural selection is a process that causes helpful heritable traits for survival and reproduction... While the version from yesterday said Natural selection is a process that causes heritable traits that are helpful for survival and reproduction... I'm not sure this new version is as clear, because when you start stringing adjectives together, the reader can get lost. Some grammarians recommend avoiding adjective strings, when possible. Firsfron of Ronchester 16:52, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Good point, I've replaced the older version of this sentence, which was much more clear. TimVickers 17:15, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you. It is US English. TimVickers 03:24, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support Has matured as an article under the hands of many competent editors. Perhaps one of the most challenging topics to summarize at an encylopedic level. Highly deserving of Featured status.--Random Replicator 02:59, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose First of all I do not believe in evolution, second of all it will offend many. 76.183.213.20 05:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment First of all, irrelevant, second of all, irrelevant. Orangemarlin 06:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you for your interest. However, this process aims to assess if an article meets the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, objections that are not actionable or based on these criteria are lkely to be ignored. TimVickers 13:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- Strong Support I think the demotion from FA status was the best thing to happen to this article. It was completely rewritten and cleaned up. The references are easy to read, and the doi or pubmed links make it easy to read the abstracts, and the writing is clear and engaging. It hits the NPOV just perfectly. And the reason I showed up here 7 months ago was to get information about evolution. I've been addicted ever since. Those many editors who have worked on this article should all be commended. But the references are the best part!!!! Orangemarlin 06:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- Let's hope it can stay NPOV ... for the record, a link to the version I brought to FAR five months ago. Tim et al have done a great job of turning the article around. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:23, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- Comment In the mechanisms section it states, "improve capacity survival and reproduction." I'm not sure what that means. Is "capacity survival" terminology that needs to be defined? Orangemarlin 06:20, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- Typo: should've been "capacity for survival."
- Comment Is this true: Evolution influences every aspect of the form and behavior of organisms? I daresay that certain antisocial personality disorders probably do not have an evolutionary or genetic component (although it can be debated). Besides in a very well written article, the use of absolutes in this sentence is very obvious. Orangemarlin 06:26, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- You're reading that kind of oddly... Behaviour and form are both evolvable, and all aspects of them potentially are. For instance, Huxley sets out a good case for key components of the ability to form societies (sympathy, empathy, etc) being evolvable, since societies help survival, and stronger societies help survival all the more. The key word, though, is "influences", though. The capacity for the disorder may exist, but it's not common, and that's probably due to evolution per Huxley. Adam Cuerden talk 08:25, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- I used the word "influences" rather than the word "determines" to try to avoid this type of confusion. As personality does have a genetic component, evolution will "influence" personality. For a simple example, look at pit-bull terriers which have been selected for aggressive personalities. Even for more "emergent" behaviours, for example musical appreciation in people, the fact that evolution has provided us with large brains and a social nature must have some influence on this aspect of our personality. So really, in the broadest sense, I think this is true. TimVickers 13:09, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- OK, I'll go along with this, but it sounds so absolutist. Sorry Adam, that's how I'm reading it. But let's be honest here, I read that article twice, and found maybe three things that I didn't like. It's not like I'm beating up anyone here. :) Orangemarlin 01:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support Excellent work has made this article one of the encyclopedia's very best. — Elembis (talk · contribs) 05:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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 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 17:04, 10 June 2007.
Here we go. I'm nominating the first fungus article for FAC, I and several others have put alot of work into it over the past twelve months, which has been tricky as there has been nothing to compare it to easily. I feel it is about as comprehensive as can possibly be, and have attempted to balance the article as much as possible. It is heavily weighted to toxicity as this is the fungus' main claim to fame (or infamy). It has a large list of reliable sources and is neutral and stable and I have rewritten the lead to better summarise the article. It has been put through the copyedit wringer by a wiki-colleague, but I will leave teh judging of the prose to the readers. My only other concern was whether to put in original sources other than secondary into the last section on famous poisonings. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 05:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Conditionalsupport if the statement "thus affecting mRNA synthesis and leading to cell death." can be clarified a bit. I'm still iffy over "Notable victims" being mostly single-source, but not enough to oppose. The article's been tremendously improved since I reviewed it. Circeus 05:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- This is tricky; I've come up with, Their major toxic mechanism is the inhibition of RNA polymerase II this is a vital enzyme in the synthesis of mRNA, without which essential protein synthesis and hence cell metabolism grind to a halt and the cell dies. - is this enough or should it be expanded more? I can play with it more latercheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 06:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've tweaked it further, and it looks fine to me now. Circeus 06:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- This is tricky; I've come up with, Their major toxic mechanism is the inhibition of RNA polymerase II this is a vital enzyme in the synthesis of mRNA, without which essential protein synthesis and hence cell metabolism grind to a halt and the cell dies. - is this enough or should it be expanded more? I can play with it more latercheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 06:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support. I like how it is right now and even though I haven't contributed to the article with any specific data, I don't think there's much room for improvement left.--Paffka 07:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support. I knew absolutely nothing about the subject, but found the article incredibly informative, articulate, and well sourced. One suggestion, however: it may be a good idea to list the references in two columns rather than one to cut down on length. Thanks for the botany lesson and good luck! María (habla conmigo) 20:57, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Done - looks better I agree.cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 22:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support. Excellent article—clean prose, nice linking and explanation of jargon, good use of images and very informative. One nit-pick:
- Under "Biochemistry": "Amatoxins consist of at least eight compounds with a similar structure, that of eight amino-acid rings. Isolated in 1941 by Heinrich O. Wieland and Rudolf Hallermayer of the University of Munich." Perhaps it could be "They were first isolated..." or something of the sort?
- Other than that, nothing I can think of. Nice work. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support I made some minor tweaks. Hope you don't mind. Overall, this is a great article and deserves to be featured. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support, with one niggle. Is it necessary to repeat Voltaire's quote twice right next to each other? The entire quote is in the text, surely it doesn't need to be repeated? Ptherwise very interesting. One other question, does anything in the wild eat this species? Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- I'm the culprit. I thought it would be interesting to give the specific French Quote. It can go without much loss. Circeus 00:45, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- Support. It is an excellent and very well-sourced article. --Carioca 06:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
![[13]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GBerunda.JPG){kind=link}
- 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 02:07, 1 June 2007.
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Currently a good article, this one has been thoroughly reviewed by numerous editors, including experts in the field. I am one of the main contributors. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 19:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
- "SEO is marketing by understanding how search algorithms work and what human visitors might search for, to help match those visitors with sites offering what they are interested in finding." This sentence is very awkward; "is marketing" is confusing because of the possibility of reading "marketing" as a noun or a verb. It appears to be used as a verb, but the marketing article treats it as a noun.--ragesoss 20:19, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've reworked that sentence. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 02:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. All of the web references should have access dates on them. The references also follows different styles. I would recommend using {{cite web}} for everything. --Maitch 16:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, we will fix that. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 16:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- (huff, puff) Okay, I've standardized all the references, updated a few of them, and added a few more to cover the latest news. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 07:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Weak Oppose - not bad, but needs workWork done, changing to SupportNeeds a prominent and early link to search engine."white hat" and "black hat" SEO practitioners - link first occurrence of the termsmonetizing - wikilinkGoogle, Usenet - wikilink first occurrence in a section, not later occurrenceslink spam - wikilinkCurrent technology - current as of what date?Some SEOs; online forums and blogs - WP:WEASEL. Surely some SEO forums and blogs are more prominent than others - you list the top 4 search engines, can you list the top 4 SEO forums or companies?Wall Street Journal profiled Traffic Power - give a date"All of the main search engines provide information/guidelines" - implies this sentence will be followed by links, but isn't. Are these supposed to be them? "the search engine guidelines[24][25][26][27][28]"Yahoo! Site Explorer] - trailing ]crawled. [18]. - dump last dotAs of 2007 the leading contextual search engines do not require submission. - surely this didn't only start in 2007Just removing the date and keeping the sentence is misleading. If I'm correct, at least Yahoo did once require submission, rather than running a spider; or at least discovery wasn't automatic, but manual entry by humans.
Not every pages is - count mismatchWhite Hat advice is generally summed up as creating ... then make - tense mismatch"white hat SEO", or "black hat SEO"; White Hat advice; is Black hat - pick a consistent capitalizationTherefore, businesses should not rely on SEO as a single source of business. - we shouldn't give controversial seeming advice like this, given that at least some businesses do, in fact, rely mainly on search engine rankings; rephrase so we're merely citing someonefirst amendment complaint - wikilinkThe whole article seems so heavily focused on the United States that it's almost tempting to slap a {{globalize}} template on it. Can we at least say something about how this affects other countries? For example, Baidu.com is the world's #7 website according to Alexa, ahead of Ask.com. What are the issues it faces? Any legal precedents outside the US, say in the EU or other countries?You removed Ask.com and added a single link to Baidu, which is slightly better ... but not all that much. Is almost all search engine optimization US focused? If so, say so, and cite it. If not, put a few things about non-US SEO. (Suggestion: it would work to cite it by omission, finding a reliable source that says almost all SEO targets the US engines, Yahoo, Google, Inktomi, and MSN.)
Uh oh, this is a problem. "In some early search engines, such as Infoseek, ranking first was as easy as grabbing the source code of the top-ranked page, placing it on your website, and submitting a URL to instantly index and rank that page.10" That isn't actually backed by the source. Please, check your references. If they don't actually back the text they're supposed to, that's very bad.AirWeb - spell out that it meant Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web, otherwise it's just a weird acronymWikilink dates in references, per WP:DATE. (Sep, 08, 2005) is not good.Search Engine Representatives section - specify who is from what engine. Is there one for Baidu?Oh dear. When there were 4 I thought there was one per engine, instead it seems 3 out of 4 are from Google. Unless about 75% of SEO specifically targets Google, this isn't balanced. If that is roughly the ratio, say so somewhere and cite it.
Origin: Second stage: - are these terms actually used universally? If so, say so and cite; if not, then get rid of them in the section headings, they look awkward"The earliest known use of the phrase "search engine optimization" was a spam message posted on Usenet on July 26, 1997." - Cite that someone says it was the earliest known use, don't just cite the message. Also link the date per WP:DATE.Actually, now you have links to two different Usenet messages. Are they both "first"? You also missed the part about "Also link the date per WP:DATE.", and don't even have the date in one of the message refs.- Now you don't have a link to either!! I'll live with that, but do think it was useful.
explain "rank" better. I couldn't find the simple sentence "better 'rank' means presented earlier in search results", and it needs to be prominent.
--AnonEMouse (squeak) 19:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, AnonEMouse, for all your hard work. I think I've now fixed all of these issues, or at least made good progress. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 02:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- You got some but not all. Weakening oppose, but still oppose. One more:
Footnote 17 (ref-a-wm-guide, apparently) is blank
--AnonEMouse (squeak) 21:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- I think I've hit the remaining items. Thank you again, and please let me know if you have further concerns! Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 04:46, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Looks like you got them (though I'd return the link to the earliest mention of the term in a spam post, that was interesting, as it showed the historical connection between SEO and spam). Supporting. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've created a convenience link to the spam message in case anybody wants to look at it. Yes, this is historically interesting. Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 15:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Strongoppose, 1c, failure to use reliable sources. Webforums,Usenetand blogs used as sources— most publishers not identified. Footnoting problems including blank footnotes, and failure to identify publishers (many of which are not reliable). See WP:CITE/ES or the cite templates for how to correctly format footnotes, once reliable sources are located. The TOC is rambling, and headings are unnecessarily long.SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:13, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- The sources cited are the most reliable available and are identified. A blog can be a reliable source if it has editorial oversight and fact checking, as the blogs cited in this article do. These aren't personal blogs (added: except for Matt Cutts' blog, but he's an expert publishing in his own field, and he's a primary source for Google). There is no need to kill trees to create reliable media. In this case we are dealing with a new media phenomenon. Traditional media are ill suited to cover the finer points of the topic.
If you think there are more reliable sources than those cited here, please produce a few examples. As for your other concerns, can you provide specific examples as the previous editor has done?Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 03:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)- Several items now fixed; I'm glad to see Usenet sources removed, but publishers still need to be identified on all sources (see WP:CITE/ES). Moving other comments from my talk page to here:
- I believe all publishers are now identified. I am still learning best practices for reference formatting, so bear with me if mistakes remain. The remaining issue of source reliability needs clarification because I've spent many hours searching for the most reliable sources, and I'm a search professional. I've started a discussion at WT:V in an attempt to improve Wikipedia's policy on citing blogs. Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 13:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Several items now fixed; I'm glad to see Usenet sources removed, but publishers still need to be identified on all sources (see WP:CITE/ES). Moving other comments from my talk page to here:
- The sources cited are the most reliable available and are identified. A blog can be a reliable source if it has editorial oversight and fact checking, as the blogs cited in this article do. These aren't personal blogs (added: except for Matt Cutts' blog, but he's an expert publishing in his own field, and he's a primary source for Google). There is no need to kill trees to create reliable media. In this case we are dealing with a new media phenomenon. Traditional media are ill suited to cover the finer points of the topic.
Moved from my talk page, as these comments are part of the review:[17]
---
Drive-byFAC reviews
Before you review featured article candidates, SandyGeorgia, I hope that you will at least read the articles. From your edit history I see that you probably spent less than five minutes looking at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Search engine optimization. I can't imagine how that would be enough time to give a thoughtful review. I don't treat other editors that way, and I don't expect other editors to treat my efforts with such disregard. This is the first time I've tried to elevate an article to featured status, and your review has made me feel both foolish and unwelcome. Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 04:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I'm sorry my comments made you feel foolish, but it doesn't take more than a few minutes to review sources and find blogs, Usenet and personal websites were used to source the article. It shouldn't be too hard to replace those with reliable sources if you know the territory well. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Can you point out the personal website, please.
Just humor me, I'm a little slow.The Usenet references were primary sources linking to things of historical interest that mentioned in the article. Your objection is duly noted. I removed those because they are linked via the reliable source that replaced them. I appreciate any and all advice.
- Can you point out the personal website, please.
- I'm sorry; since you brought the comments to my talk page, I didn't have the review comments at hand, where I actually said (see above) "Webforums, Usenet and blogs used as sources". I did not see any personal websites. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Wait, I get it. You areAre you objecting to Matt Cutts as a source? Did you know that Matt is the head of Google's webspam team, and that he is the de facto spokesman for Google to the webmaster community? Per WP:SPS, which you probably know inside and out,and maybe wrote most of it yourself, a self-published source by an expert writing within their areas of expertise is allowed. Let me quote:
Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by a well-known, professional researcher (scholarly or non-scholarly) in a relevant field. These may be acceptable so long as their work has been previously published by reliable third-party publications. However, exercise caution: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.
- Cutts is extremely well-known in this space. The posts I reference are relevant to his field of expertise. He has been published numerous times in third-party publications. I have exercised caution. When the head of Google's webspam team explains why Google blocked a particular website for spamming, I am prepared to take his word for it. I don't see how the New York Times can do better fact checking than that.
- In this instance mainstream media is way behind the times in reporting on search engine optimization. If we want to write a proper article with all the nitty gritty details, I can't wait for the New York Times to catch up. I've used dead-tree media wherever possible, but these here blogs are the equivalent of industry trade journals. There's only one paper magazine I know of about search engine optimization, and it
sucks, out loud.is not very good. If we want to write a high quality article, we have to use online sources. Most people covering this space publish via blogs.
- In this instance mainstream media is way behind the times in reporting on search engine optimization. If we want to write a proper article with all the nitty gritty details, I can't wait for the New York Times to catch up. I've used dead-tree media wherever possible, but these here blogs are the equivalent of industry trade journals. There's only one paper magazine I know of about search engine optimization, and it
- Do you do much work on technology articles? Not so many people do. If you have, you've probably seen situations like this before. If you still disagree with my approach, I suppose I can try to find some secondary sources that report "Matt Cutts said" and use those, but I somehow feel that would result in a lower quality article.
Who knows? Maybe I am completely off base. If this is an interesting issue, maybe we can take it to RFC and get some more opinions.Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 05:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Do you do much work on technology articles? Not so many people do. If you have, you've probably seen situations like this before. If you still disagree with my approach, I suppose I can try to find some secondary sources that report "Matt Cutts said" and use those, but I somehow feel that would result in a lower quality article.
- Please calm down, and identify your publishers. If you're using blogs and webforums as sources, your reasoning for considering them reliable should be explained (as you've pointed out above). Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Here is a sample edit; I filled in some missing authors, publication dates, and publishers (as well as identifying PDFs and running Gimmetrow's ref fixer to fix ref punctuation per WP:FN) as a sample of work needed. Struck completed items above. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I AM CALM!!!! (Humor!)Sorry I got a bit keyed up. As one of the few professional SEOs who contributes to Wikipedia in a non-spammy way, I sometimes get kicked around by people who think all SEOs are scum. I have a real challenge with this article because I've used many non-traditional sources, and I am afraid that my efforts may go down the drain because of ingrained biases. This is an arcane topic, but one that is very important to many people. I really appreciate your help, and I see that you've made some sample edits to the article. I will surely take your advice on board and follow up with further edits as needed. THANK YOU! Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 06:09, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- SandyGeorgia, if I need to explain why we are using blogs as references, should I write something into the article to explain that most SEO-related news is reported online, via blogs, because the practitioners, analysts and reporters within this industry have such a strong affinity for new media? You won't believe it, but there's even an online radio station that carries SEO news all day long. Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 06:33, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Hey, Jehochman, much improved, glad we're back on track, and I'm sorry again for making you feel awful — you have a solid start here. :-) I've struck all comments above except for the concern about blogs and webforums. What is needed on those is to get some consensus from people knowledgeable in the area that these are, indeed, reliable sources for the statements they are sourcing. I accept that the authors may be knowledgeable experts, but you may need others to confirm that the sources reflect industry-wide consensus and knowledge, since blogs are not peer-reviewed. Perhaps there are some WikiProjects where you could inquire, and you could also initiate a thread at WP:RS, inviting others to comment or look at this review. If you can get some consensus from people knowledgeable in the field that the sources are reliable for this application, I'll strike that remaining object. Remember, if you don't achieve that in this FAC, there's always the opportunity to come back for another try, but by asking knowledgeable folks to comment, you should be able to get there. The TOC is MUCH improved — nice work! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've invited half a dozen editors who have experience with this topic to evaluate the references. Let's see how many respond. Maybe we can get an opinion from AnonEMouse above, who's been very helpful. I appreciated your continued support! Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 17:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I tend to accept Jehochman's word on this. I haven't done a thorough scan through the references, but the ones I have read do seem to be OK. I'm not an SEO expert, but have read a bit about it, and it is true (and not that surprising) that the best sources on writing web sites are, well, web sites.
- That said, I've "met" SandyGeorgia in quite a few FAC reviews now, and she tends to be stricter than I am. :-) This may not seem immediately obvious, given that I tend to write 20 issues to her 2, but most of my 20 are things that can be fixed in only slightly more time than it took me to object to them, while hers tend to be foundational/structural issues. As someone wrote somewhere, the main difference between a GA article and an FA article is one pair of eyes vs many pairs of eyes. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- support The article came a long way and the 5 archive pages of the articles talk page speak for themselves. It is a very complicated subject and also one where you will not be able to find 2 experts in the field that will have the same opinion about it. References
waswere specifically hard to come by. Mainstream media only started slowly and not too long ago to cover the subject in greater detail when search in general startedwasgetting a lot more attention by advertisers and old school mediaas well. SEO is also constantly changing at a paste that most big media outlets can not keep up with. No wonder that most of the real information can be found in forum discussions and blogs. The time it takes from start to print for an article at the NYT or WSJ is an eternity in the SEO industry. Once coverage goes into details, it often ends up being either wrong<striek>, out dated or is already a thing offromthe past. A lot of editors did a lot of digging for quality references to support the article. Let me show you some examples.
- See here the debate about citing forums, such as High Rankings. Interesting to note is the fact that over time was it possible to replace all references to that forum with better resources. Also see this debate and this one. It shows that every reference was debated, evaluated and may be added only temporarily until better references were found. References were not picked because of convenience. Regarding Matt Cutts blog, see see this. Most editors that commented here are not familiar with the subject and therefore did never heard about Matt Cutts and understand his role as an official unofficial voice of Google. If you check some of his posts and especially the comments, you will notice that the discussions are not trivial and very technical and detailed. Just this Monday made one of his posts that was updated by Matt headlines again across virtually all blogs in the industry. [18] The original post from a month ago had already over 600!!!! comments and none of them were spam or trivial like "me too". --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 19:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you, Cumbrowski for your comments! Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 19:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Regarding SearchEngineWatch.com (SEW) blogs and forums as well as SearchEngineLand.com (SEL). Danny Sullivan (technologist) was the founder of SEW and of SEL last fall. You can check out the article about him to get to know about more about his background. He is well respected throughout the whole industry, by search engines, marketers and advertisers that do search alike. He has a daily internet radio show and podcast where he reports the latest search marketing news. SEW and now SEL are technically blogs, but they are managed and treated like a news pager manages their content. The editors of the "blogs" are never "newbie's" or "rookies", but always well established expert in the industry. They all have their own personal/semi professional blogs for their ramblings about stuff that is may be industry related, but not appropriate for SEL or SEW. You could remove WordPress as publishing platform and replace it with any other CMS and it would be considered a "news publication" by old standards. Well, even old publishers start utilizing blogs or blog like features. I believe that you also can make comments at the WSJ online nowadays too. I am not sure, but several newspapers do it for sure and you would not discount them as a bad reference, only because they use a blog as online publishing platform. It's the quality of the content and the professionalism of the editors and not the CMS that make a site a quality reference and reliable source.--roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 20:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- In the lead, this sentence is a problem: "As a marketing strategy, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for in order to increase a site's relevancy." Do you mean "As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevancy, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for."
- I'd love you to get rid of all the "upon"s (on). Tony 23:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you for the comments, Tony. I've adopted your suggestion for the lead, and wiped out all the "upons." I had planned to save a few, just for variety, but none were worthy.
- Would you be willing to look at the sources and say whether you think they are reliable or not? SandyGeorgia suggested that I ask for community input. Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 00:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment I asked Jill Whalen to comment on the sources. She is a longstanding and well-respected member of the expert SEO community, and she's very tough on the issue of what's reliable and what's not. This is what she said:
...I don't have a wikipedia account. However, I think it's going to be very hard to get consensus on which resources are reliable or not. Most of us disagree on that point! [19]
I would beware of anything from WebPronews. Many of their articles are good and accurate, but they allow any "author" to be published, so you can't rely on them to be a reliable source. And as much as I love (and write for) Search Engine Guide, they will also publish pretty much anything related to SEO/SEM.
So for those types of resources (and any other that will publish any article at all about SEO/SEM), you have to evaluate who the actual author of the article is and judge their level of expertise and knowledge. (I'm not going to do that here as I have enough enemies!)
And unfortunately, we all know that the major media sources, Forbes, NYT, etc. often provide the worst and most inaccurate info. But it's understandable why Wikipedia would want/need to reference those ones.
But honestly, a very brief look at the references in that Wiki article look to be fine. [20]
- In light of this advice, I will look at the references again and see what can be done to improve the reliability of sources. Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 18:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
- Don't throw the baby out with the bath water and check the authors first. I agree with Jill regarding WebProNews. They are agressively expanding to cover everything, everywhere. That the quality suffers there in some cases, because of it, is not surprising, but it also does not mean that the source in general is unreliable. Regarding Forbes, well I commented on main stream media and SEO coverage already :) --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 05:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
- I replaced the WebProNews reference with Washington Post, and removed the Search Engine Journal reference and edited the statements to rely on an existing reference. Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 15:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
- comment. Regarding the SEJ reference removal. I would not consider Gemme van Hasselt an unreliable source. He lives for years in Shanghai and works as internet consultant and news correspondent for inside marketing news for a number of blogs. He was born in the Netherlands and speaks 5 languages: German, English, Chinese, French and Dutch (Flemish) [21]. If the reference is better in quality than the reference you replaced it with or if you just removed it and left the content in the article unreferenced, I would suggest you re-add it again. That's my 2 cents. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 23:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
- I modified the content to match the Mike Grehan article that was already cited. This is a minor issue. The bigger issue is how to get more people to comment here so we can demonstrate consensus. Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 01:00, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
- comment. Regarding the SEJ reference removal. I would not consider Gemme van Hasselt an unreliable source. He lives for years in Shanghai and works as internet consultant and news correspondent for inside marketing news for a number of blogs. He was born in the Netherlands and speaks 5 languages: German, English, Chinese, French and Dutch (Flemish) [21]. If the reference is better in quality than the reference you replaced it with or if you just removed it and left the content in the article unreferenced, I would suggest you re-add it again. That's my 2 cents. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 23:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
- I replaced the WebProNews reference with Washington Post, and removed the Search Engine Journal reference and edited the statements to rely on an existing reference. Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 15:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
- Don't throw the baby out with the bath water and check the authors first. I agree with Jill regarding WebProNews. They are agressively expanding to cover everything, everywhere. That the quality suffers there in some cases, because of it, is not surprising, but it also does not mean that the source in general is unreliable. Regarding Forbes, well I commented on main stream media and SEO coverage already :) --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 05:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment I sent Bill Slawski from "SEO by the Sea" an email and asked for his comments. Bill has a Wikipedia account and also contributed to the SEO article itself a bit in the past. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 22:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
- Hi. I'm responding to Jehochman's request to comment upon the references presently cited by the Search Engine optimization article. I will disclose that I submitted four or five of the academic peer-reviewed papers cited, and a version of the Cory Doctorow article, though linked to its original place of publication at the Well, rather than e-LearningGuru.
- I have seen and read all of the articles presently listed as references in the Wikipedia search engine optimization except for one, which I read before writing this response. I know all of the authors of the blog posts listed, except for the one that I hadn't seen before, and I know two of the owners of the business that published the article that I hadn't seen before. As far as quality of resources in the article on SEO, the ones listed are of high quality. Even the main stream media articles.Bill Slawski 01:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks Bill for taking the time to look at this and comment! Jehochman ☎ / ✔ 05:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support. For a web-based subject, I think the reliability of the references is fine (although there's no harm in having a small paragraph at the start of the References section). The prose is of high-quality throughout, the content is comprehensive, and the images have useful captions and fair use rationales. CloudNine 15:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you for the review, CloudNine. Jehochman Talk 17:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- support I was sent an email by Carsten Cumbrowski requesting I give my opinion - My Wikipedia user name is a direct Polish equivalent of my English name as I would prefer to avoid the frequent searches for my name resulting in Wikipedia edits and discussions either now or in the future.
- Whilst I could be looked on as notable in other fields, that is not the case for my current profession in affiliate marketing. I am regarded by many as an expert in blogging, Wordpress and in particular SEO for blogs, and some of those who have already given an opinion are known to be subscribers to my personal blog, so all the terminology and references are very familiar to me. Historically I have been creating high profile websites since 1996, and was first online in 1992.
- Most of the documents cited were already familiar to me and those that were not I have examined. Based upon my understanding of the Wikipedia rules for verifiable cited sources, all the sources I would consider appropriate.
- It is a known fact in Search Engine Optimization that many of the best sources of information unfortunately do not conform to Wikipedia rules for verifiable cited sources and whilst search engines by-and-large operate based upon mathematical algorithms, there are multiple ways to achieve similar results. Many of the documents cited I do not personally agree with all the conclusions reached, but that doesn't mean they should be excluded from the article. AndrzejBroda 10:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you for the review, Andrzej. We welcome additional points of view. Feel free to add new statements with appropriate sources to the article, or you can leave a message on the article talk page with suggestions. We could use more European coverage in the article. Jehochman Talk 13:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. Thank you for your comment below, User:Randfish. Keep in mind this discussion isn't about the editors who worked on this article. If possible, could you refactor your comment to specifically address the reliability of the references cited in the article? What you think about me doesn't matter. I may be nice, but I could also be misguided, stupid or just plain wrong. If you can identify specific weaknesses in the article, or provide additional sources, make a list here, and I will take the time to make improvements! Jehochman Talk 17:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. Jonathan - I'd rather not make changes to the article or, really, even read through it. I've mentioned why[22] on SEOmoz. My point is that unless the editors here can themselves claim the level of expertise and industry participation that you have, they should be respecting your authority. I'm not interested in whether that's the "Wikipedia" way - it's the right way. YOU are a trustworthy source, and if YOU reference something, it should be up to another true expert to question it, not at the whim of prejudiced participants who have no industry experience. --Randfish 20:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Rand, thank's for the vote of confidence! You may be right, but when I volunteered for this, I agreed to be mercilessly edited, reverted, criticized and insulted by 4 million other users, so I have no complaints. Check my talk page for examples. Jehochman Talk 21:12, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Reliability of references, summary
SandyGeorgia requested opinions as to the reliability of sources. Here is a brief summary of the opinions we've gathered.
- Jehochman (nominator, main contributor, professional SEO) - I've checked all the references and think they are reliable.
- AnonEMouse - "I tend to accept Jehochman's word on this. I haven't done a thorough scan through the references, but the ones I have read do seem to be OK. I'm not an SEO expert, but have read a bit about it, and it is true (and not that surprising) that the best sources on writing web sites are, well, web sites."
- Carsten Cumbrowski (main contributor, professional SEO) - "A lot of editors did a lot of digging for quality references to support the article."
- Jill Whalen (notable SEO expert) - "But honestly, a very brief look at the references in that Wiki article look to be fine."
- Bill Slawski (well known SEO) - "As far as quality of resources in the article on SEO, the ones listed are of high quality."
- CloudNine - "For a web-based subject, I think the reliability of the references is fine"
- User:AndrzejBroda (European SEO blogger) - "Based upon my understanding of the Wikipedia rules for verifiable cited sources, all the sources I would consider appropriate."
- Rand Fishkin (notable SEO expert) - "Jonathan Hochman knows what he's talking about and should be considered reliable and trustworthy in the sources he cites. Despite my personal distaste for this website (wikipedia) and many of its editorial practices, Jon is one of the good guys, and both his goals and motivations are noble." - — Preceding unsigned comment added by Randfish (talk • contribs) 16:51, 30 May 2007
- User:Pleeker - "I've read the SEO article. I've reviewed it and I find the references used to be very good. I'm familiar with just about all of the industry sources used, and trust each as a reliable source of information."
Oppose - This is not an appropriate topi for a featured article. Search engine optimization is way too esoteric for the average reader and there is no structure or discipline involved in the industry. The SEO community is fragmented, contentious, and lacks professional credentialization. Lack of standards is just one of the many problems that plagues SEO and attempts to document it. The article itself still contains erroneous statements of fact (early "optimiation" was based on tagging, not simply submitting URLs) and omits important information (such as the need for directory optimization in the 1990s). The summarization of the "backrub" project also makes it sound like PageRank was all there was to it (it was far more than that). And the article is promoting a handful of SEOs, none of whom are particularly superior in skill or knowledge to the community in general as authorities on the topic. - — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael Martinez (talk • contribs) 11:12, 30 May 2007
- Thank you for taking the time to comment! I will look into these issues and see if we can improve the article. Jehochman Talk 18:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Upon reflection: Michael, as I know from having met you in other online fora, you have a strong point of view. Wikipedia articles represent multiple points of view in proportion to their prevalence. If you wish to add criticisms of the SEO industry to the article, you are welcome to do so, but please cite reliable sources. Jehochman Talk 07:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. I commented on blogs reliability at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Search_engine_optimization.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 22:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've read the SEO article. I've reviewed it and I find the references used to be very good. I'm familiar with just about all of the industry sources used, and trust each as a reliable source of information. --Pleeker 04:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you, Pleeker, for your comments. Jehochman Talk 07:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. Forbe's article should not be a reference. It's biased and inaccurate. The writer went out of his way to write a one-sided article by censoring feedback from several people whos opinions clashed with the gist of his article (e.g. Barry Bwelford from cre8asiteforms, Aaron Pratt from SEOBuzzbox - both claim they received calls from the author of the article but their opinions were dismissed). The author later admitted he may have done better to write a more balanced piece. --Tetsuto 06:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- No article will make 100% of the people happy. That's not the standard we use, and there is a strong consensus that Forbes is a reliable source. We do represent all views, so feel free to add a counterpoint that cites a different, reliable sources. Jehochman Talk 06:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- In general, Forbes is a reliable source. However, Andy Greenberg happened to write an unreliable, over-the-top, sensationalized article (BTW, I've read your featured article twice, read every reference, and in my opinion, all other references are credible). This reference will make 99% of SEOs very unhappy.
Rand Fishkin calls it "an extremely lopsided article[23]." Andy also called Rand Fishkin asking for "supplemental horror stories." Like Aaron Pratt, Rand's claim that supplemental results isn't that big of a deal was dismissed because it killed the drama of Andy's article. In the video, Rand says: "and of course, the reporter proceeded to call up folks until he found people who supported his story line which I think sadly is how a lot of reporting operates...it makes me doubt the journalistic field a little bit."
The two sites discussed in the article as victims of Google Hell were actually just perpetrators of spam [24] "Matt, however, provides another take. Google received spam reports of link exchange emails and that caused the site to lose its credibility in the search engine's eyes." Matt Cutts adds: "Andy Greenberg wrote an article for Forbes entitled “Condemned To Google Hell” about supplemental results. I was getting ready to go on vacation, so I didn’t have a chance to talk to Andy, and now I wish that I had. It’s easy to read the article and come away with the impression that Google’s supplemental results are some sort of search engine dungeon where bad pages go and sit in limbo forever, and that’s just not true."
Aaron Pratt discusses his dealings with Andy in this post [25], where he says: "Andy Greenberg from Forbes called me looking for information on Google’s supplemental results. When I said that I believed that SEOs exaggerate what supplemental results are all about he wasn’t interested in discussing the issue further with me."
Barry Welford over on Matt Cutts blog [26] says: "Andy Greenberg called me when preparing his Forbes article and I expressed this point of view to him. I guess it didn't fit the picture that he wanted to present so he ignored what I said. So much for journalistic integrity." Barry later says, in the comments of the same Matt Cutts post: "Just in the interests of fair play, I've just had a call from Andy Greenberg of Forbes as I'm sure have others he spoke to prior to his article. He wanted to say that on reflection, it might have been better to include both sides of the debate." You call that reliable journalism? Jonathan, the Wikipedia article's credibility is tarnished when it cites a journalist who is clueless about search engines and is out to sensationalize rather than inform. --Tetsuto 08:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- That reference was used to support this statement: "Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on SEO can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors." Do you disagree with this statement or think it should be reworked? Do you have a better source to cite that would support this statement? I specifically did NOT use this source for anything related to supplemental results because I know that Forbes is not the best source for technology information, but their reporting of what happens to a business when it loses natural search rankings is perfectly acceptable. I am convinced that business did suffer losses when their rankings dropped (that reason is in dispute). You seem to be knowledgeable about SEO, so you see the flaws in mainstream media coverage; people knowledgeable in other subjects see the same media biases, and lapses, their own fields. That's why we use multiple sources, to balance out any biases or flaws in coverage.
- We face tough objections due to Wikipedia's inherent biases toward print media. This discussion is an excellent example of why we need to convince the community to be more accepting of expert bloggers and online sources. We aren't going to convince anyone if we "nuke the site from orbit" as Rand and Barry did yesterday.[27] [28] The way to convince people is to work with them and show them a better way to do things. Jehochman Talk 08:51, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Jonathan, I agree that a small brand business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors. SEO is a marketing strategy that involves gaining inbound links from other sites besides Google. It's also a strategy that involves increasing visibility and brand-awareness by submitting articles/links to sites like Digg, del.icio.us, and Wikipedia. So a company that invests in legitimate SEO and website development will gain many links from sites besides search engines. Those links will often send a majority of a site's traffic[29] (e.g. Seomoz's top referers: digg.com, stumbleupon, del.icio.us, bloglines, i-mezzo.net. SEO by the Sea's top referers: my.yahoo.com, netvibes.com, potu.com, blog.searchenginewatch.com). A quote from that page: "Search marketers, in a twist of irony, receive a very small share of their traffic from search engines." A niche market site with less viral marketing opportunities may be more dependent on search engine traffic, though Michael Gray will tell you even carpet cleaner sites can benefit from viral marketing[30]. Big brand names also can sustain loss of traffic from search engines much better than a website that no one knows exists. For example, people will find BMW.com or Ebay.com without Google, but they will have a more difficult time finding a new blog or be even aware of the fact that it exists. If a site isn't referenced often by other websites (either because it lacks originality/value or because its new) and 90% of inbound traffic comes from search engines and that traffic doesn't compound (word of mouth and high number of return visits result in traffic that compounds, like money sitting in a Roth IRA), then loss of traffic from search engines can be devastating. --Tetsuto 19:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- That's a great perspective to add to the article. Let me see how that fits. Jehochman Talk 19:51, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
![[36]](http://www.phil.pku.edu.cn/personal/wugsh/kxts/pot/028.jpg){kind=link}
![[46]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/01/Adminmoz.png){kind=link}
![[47]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/03/Adminie.png){kind=link}
- 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 02:07, 1 June 2007.
Self-nom This is an article about Georgia Tech's oldest building and administrative center. It has the appropriate references, pictures, and a fair use rationale for the one non-free image, and I belive it meets all of the requirements for a FA. The article passed GAC in February and was peer reviewed on May 7. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 15:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support I was a substantial contributor to this article so I may be biased. MaxVeers 20:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comments Interesting article, well-cited, but the prose could be further copyedited:
"Tech Tower was completed in 1888 for a cost of $43,250..." - per WP:$, the link would be more easily readable if written as US$43,250;"In addition, the deans of the College of Engineering and College of Sciences maintain office space in Tech Tower.[11][12]" - replace "maintain office space" with "have offices"."A number of times, students have orchestrated complex plans to steal the huge, symbolic letter 'T' on the Tech Tower's TECH signs, sometimes called climbing." - replace "have orchestrated complex plans to steal" with "have stolen" - just the fact they've stolen the letter is significant enough. Also, who calls it "climbing"? I do think that that tidbit can safely be omitted."creating a source of confusion for visitors and new students.[20]" - "a source of" is redundant, just simplify to "creating confusion for....""this has not actually happened in practice" - "actually" is redundant with "in practice", remove either one.The sole entry in See also is already linked within the main text, so the section should be removed.
- That's all I have to say. After these slight changes the article should be worth the star. Resurgent insurgent 10:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've made all of those changes, except that I'm not sure exactly who calls it "climbing"; however, I did find it called "climbing" in an issue of the school's student-run newspaper, The Technique. Perhaps MaxVeers will be able to resolve that one. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 13:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Note that if we keep the "climbing" mention the sentence will have to be reworded - right now it's quite awkward and a way to fix it eludes me. I added an extra "the" for consistency. Resurgent insurgent 14:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- The removal of the "climbing" mention wouldn't bother me; I agree that as it is, the wording in that sentence is a little awkward. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 14:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- And it's gone. Resurgent insurgent 15:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Beautiful. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 16:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- And it's gone. Resurgent insurgent 15:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- The removal of the "climbing" mention wouldn't bother me; I agree that as it is, the wording in that sentence is a little awkward. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 14:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Note that if we keep the "climbing" mention the sentence will have to be reworded - right now it's quite awkward and a way to fix it eludes me. I added an extra "the" for consistency. Resurgent insurgent 14:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support now that corrections have been made. Resurgent insurgent 06:38, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Fixes needed: Please see WP:MOSBOLD. Also see WP:MOSNUM and WP:CONTEXT; solo years and As of years need not be wikilinked. Georgia Institute of Technology is used in the lead, switching immediately to Georgia Tech, which should be "defined" in parenthese on its first use.SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
- I think I fixed all of that, but as I never quite understood the dates policy, I'm not quite sure. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 03:40, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, thay all look to be fixed now (by the way, for the future, you should know not to strike someone else's comments, rather wait for them to come back and strike. I usually get very hot and bothered when someone strikes my comments :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support Good article flow, appropriate use of pictures, cites, and links. Mbisanz 05:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support
Comment I was a peer reviewer for this article; it's very close, but the one remaining issue I have is the lack of citations for some paragraphs (it should be obvious which; essentially any that do not sport a trailing footnote). Once addressed I will be happy to support.- Merzbow 06:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
- Fixed, to the best of my ability. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 22:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
- Looks good, support. - Merzbow 00:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose
- Please fix all thumbnail images IAW WP:MoS#Images. Done
- Looks ok, but I still think the first image is way too big. I know that most articles let the first image be larger than the others, but this one is huge compared to others. I recommend shrinking it a bit (say to 200 pixels or smaller). — BQZip01 — talk 01:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Several REALLY short paragraphs (some one sentence long). Combine/consolidate. Done- Images must have first been published before 1923 to avoid copyright laws in their usage, not just taken. Please specify when & where such photos were first published. Done
- "the famous TECH signs" Until reading this article, I'd never heard of the signs. How famous are they exactly? How about rephrasing?
- Too many commas (inappropriate overuse example: In "Tech Tower underwent extensive renovations in 1965, with a focus on remodeling the building's interior layout." the comma is not necessary). Done
Very well documented, but make sure that all dates within them are wikilinked (the templates don't take care of everything). DoneRemove dead/nonexistent wikilink to "Edwin D. Harrison" Done- Claim that the east T should be stolen first doesn't seem to be backed up in the given references. Done
- Please fix all thumbnail images IAW WP:MoS#Images.
I'll admit this review is not complete, but should give you a start on things to fix. — BQZip01 — talk 08:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- I assume that when linking dates in refs, only complete dates (yyyy-mm-dd) are to be linked, as opposed to (unlinked dates) "Winter 2003" or "1888"? —Disavian (talk/contribs) 16:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Correct. This will allow wikipedia to display such dates as defined by the user. See WP:DATE for more info. — BQZip01 — talk 17:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- In order to compensate for the short length of the sentence about Teddy visiting Tech Tower, I tossed in a quote. Does it help the article, or should it be taken out? —Disavian (talk/contribs) 01:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think it helps the article much since it doesn't reflect on the tower at all, only the students. — BQZip01 — talk 01:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Okay. I think we can handle having one moderate-sized paragraph... —Disavian (talk/contribs) 02:05, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think it helps the article much since it doesn't reflect on the tower at all, only the students. — BQZip01 — talk 01:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- Found a publication date in the archives for the picture. As for your last suggestion about the 'T' on the east side, tbook and the ramblin' wreck club are the school's "keepers of tradition," and note that the Downtown Connector aka I-75/I-85 is east of Tech Tower, as implied in the article. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 02:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
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{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ "Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome". Nature. 437 (7055): 69–87. 2005. doi:10.1038/nature04072. PMID 16136131.
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