Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Flight feather

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 16:20, 5 November 2007.

Flight feather

Self-nomination: I'm nominating (and obviously supporting) this article for featured article status because, after working on it for several months, I feel it's comprehensive, well-written and well-illustrated. I believe it meets all the FA criteria. MeegsC | Talk 22:49, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support - normally I'd demand the small paragraphs get combined but...this is tricky here. Prose has good enough flow so as I don't notice it (which is good). A bit jargony in places but it is a very specialised topic and I think the judicious use of bluelinks has solved that. Well done. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:58, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Since the citations point to the publications in the "references" section, perhaps the latter should be moved up, so the publications are already named when they are mentioned in the citations. You might even be bold and put both together under one "References and notes" section as in Borobudur. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done MeegsC | Talk 17:10, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But please see additional comment lower in this section, left by another editor. MeegsC | Talk 16:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The first paragraph of the lead is not at all inviting. It's very technical and doesn't really tell a casual reader anything. I'd suggest trying to make the lead more accessible and get into the "with the rachis running closer to the distal side of the feather" language further into the body. --Elliskev 21:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done Please have another look and tell me if that's better! MeegsC | Talk 00:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support Nice. The rest of the article looks good to me. It's well-written, cited, etc. I'll just assume it's accurate. :) --Elliskev 01:00, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! And thanks for taking the time to have a look. MeegsC | Talk 07:39, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support I can't think of anything significant I would add Jimfbleak 08:13, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment shouldn't it read "tertiaries" rather than "tertials"? 82.71.48.158 15:14, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nope! The term for those feathers is tertials—though presumably it comes from the same root word. MeegsC | Talk 15:21, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MeegsC asked me to emphasise that I changed the order of reference sections to agree with longer-standing biology FAs, in case anyone objected. Books should be listed after specific references, and everything else should follow WP:ORDER. 82.71.48.158 15:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It's nice you want to follow an established format, but what exactly is the logic behind it? It doesn't make sense to refer to a book that hasn't been mentioned in the text yet. I'd expect a list of books to come before the notes. Can anyone clarify the justification? --Mgm 87.212.40.234 02:53, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the WP:ORDER article, it appears that the only books that are to be listed above the notes section are those that weren't used in the construction of the article—that is, those that are suggested further reading only. Any references used for the article are to go in a "References" section after the notes. If this is going to cause problems in getting the article approved, I can certainly incorporate all of the references into the footnotes section, which would eliminate the need for separate categories altogether! :) MeegsC | Talk 15:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: I will use the example from this Wikipedia article (entitled "Citing sources") to set up the reference and citation sections. Any quibbles with that order should be taken up on the talk page there! MeegsC | Talk 09:24, 4 November 2007 (UTC) Done MeegsC | Talk 09:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Well-written and well-cited. The illustrations are also very informative. Great work. Cheers, heyjude. 21:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support Great article. and very well cited!--Mike Searson 00:24, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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.