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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 by Ian Rose 01:51, 15 March 2012 [1].

Noisy Miner

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Noisy Miner (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:14, 22 January 2012 (UTC) Mdk572 (talk · contribs) [reply]

Marj and I have buffed this little critter (found in everyone's backyard here in Oz ("noisy" is an understatement!) to give it a shot at the mainpage one day. Feel it is as good as many other bird FAs and there are two of us to address concerns pronto. Have at it. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:14, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from PumpkinSky
  1. Who's Marj? (curious, not in article history by that name)
  2. Ref 3 has a date format that does not match the others. PumpkinSky talk 03:21, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Jim usual high standard, obligatory niggles Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:44, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I made these edits, please check. In particular, I remove much double spacing from the text. Some of this was at the start of sentences, so may have been intentional, but was not consistent so I edited it out. If you prefer the older, AE type double spacing (no pov from me!), please make sure it's reapplied consistently.
  • I pruned the "howevers", please check that the survivors are essential
  • Two subspecies have long been recognised, with M. m. leachifound in eastern Tasmania, while the mainland population has been split into three in 1999. — "was split", I think, but clunky anyway. What about something like Four subspecies are currently recognised. The separation of the Tasmanian M. m. leachi is of long standing, and the mainland birds were further split in 1999?
  • Is it worth mentioning that the change from Merops was because it was realised that it wasn't a bee-eater?
  • One of their most obvious characteristics — perhaps add of the genus?
  • A 1999 study suggested that two additional subspecies be recognised — are these now generally accepted?
  • Far North Queensland — is the capitalised "Far" correct?
  • (Ocyphaps lophotes) — why binomial for this but not other birds?

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Missing bibliographic info for Officer 1964 (unless that should be 1965?)
added some info. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
64 typo fixed Marj (talk) 04:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • No citations to Beruldsen 1980
Reinstated. He is quoted by Higgins but is the recognised nest/eggs expert. Marj (talk) 04:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 1: why the bolding?
Looks like double italics - title and scientific name. Fixed Marj (talk) 04:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check formatting of quotes within quotes in titles
Changed to consistent single within double Marj (talk) 19:47, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is ANU E?
Hosted by the Australian National University, ANU E Press publishes electronic scholarly works Marj (talk) 05:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be consistent in whether ISBNs are hyphenated or not
Looks like I don't and Cas does. Think I have them removed them all.Marj (talk) 05:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't mix {{citation}} with the {{cite}} family
  • Be consistent in whether you provide publishers for journals
The cite doi template does not give publishers. Do you want to change the others to match Cas?Marj (talk) 19:59, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All journal publishers removed Marj (talk) 19:12, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • When listing Australian locations, be consistent in whether they include state name, just "Australia", or none of the above (more common names could include nothing, but consistently - compare Canberra and Sydney, which have about the same recognition), and if states whether these are abbreviated
  • Be consistent in whether page ranges are abbreviated or not
  • What is CSIRO, and why does Emu have two different publishers?
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - a government publisher of scientific and technical books and journals, including Emu, the mouthpiece of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists´ Union. It was previously published independently by the RAOU. Given CSIRO consistently and wikilinked first mention. Marj (talk) 05:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Advice? In RL I'm used to giving the publisher when it is published by/for a noteworthy organisation only. So 'Nordic Society Oikos' but not 'Wiley-Blackwell' Is there a wikipedia or bird project guideline on this? Marj (talk) 20:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be consistent in whether initials are spaced or unspaced
  • Be consistent in how multi-author works are notated
  • Check for minor inconsistencies like doubled periods

Hey, Cas, your green responses are created with some sort of template, I guess? Templates get more than double-counted (for some reason Gimmetrow can explain) in transcluded pages, and cause errors in the FAC archives per Wikipedia:Template limits. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok -I'll de-templated them in a sec. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ucucha:

  • In the lead, you talk about Tasmanian and mainland birds before you give the essential context that it's an Australian bird.
  • The lead mentions twice that the increase in this species's population has led other species to decrease.
  • The nomenclatural discussion seems incorrect to me according to Article 23.9 of the Code. If M. garrula was actually suppressed by the Commission, it is not technically a nomen oblitum. I haven't seen the text of the opinion, though.
  • The lead and the body differ on their assessment of the validity of the two additional subspecies. Also, calling a subspecies a "race" is confusing.
  • Ah yes, Higgins the HANZAB bible is cautious about fully accepting, but Schodde is another broad publication-review, and the official Australian Gov't directory accepts the four, so have updated accordingly. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:20, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The description section says that the proposed subspecies lepidota is only in western NSW, but the map shows a large range in Qld.
  • "These churring calls vary between individuals,21 and coupled with laboratory tests showing Noisy Miners can distinguish calls by different birds, suggest this may be integral to the complex social structure of the species"—this sentence is a little too complex.

Ucucha (talk) 01:23, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No further issues; haven't yet had a chance to look for sources that may have been missed. Ucucha (talk) 01:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. All looks good now. Ucucha (talk) 15:27, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comments. Not done reviewing yet, but it looks pretty good. All I've got so far is suggestions for links. Will finish the rest later tonight. Sasata (talk) 21:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • lead: link subspecies, colonies, display, manna, courtship display, culling, protected species; link Tasmanian earlier
  • Taxonomy: link John Gould, aboriginal people, conserved name, molecular analysis
  • "John Gould elected to use the name Merops garrulus as the original description" how could he use a name as a description? (I know what is meant, but it could be worded better)
  • Description: link plumage, nape, crown, mottled, alarm call, conspecifics
  • Dist & Hab: link Adelaide, sedentary, edge habitat
  • don't think hypothesized needs linking
  • Behaviour: link canopy, bonding, agonistic, infanticide, grebes, herons, cormorants
  • link exotics (I'm assuming this means introduced species?); spatial memory; buff; die-back; cooperative breeding; habitat restoration; revegetation; habitat corridor
  • eucalypt is variably capitalized
  • "Banksia ericifolia, integrifolia and serrata, Grevillea aspleniifolia, banksii, hookeriana, juniperina and rosmarinifolia" I haven't seen this method of listing only epithets when referring to species, are you sure we can do that?
  • "When searching for invertebrates, however, it appears to employ a different strategy based on learned rules." any chance of explaining/expanding this a little bit? Are the dual cognitive strategies employed by the noisy miner for foraging a behavioural mechanism unique to this species?
Expanded. It was the first study to find so, I haven't located similar studies of other species. Marj (talk) 22:02, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • the lead says the clutch size is 3-4 eggs, the body says 2-4
  • "Hatching is asynchronous, with up to six days being recorded between the hatching of the first and last chicks in a clutch." you might want to reword to avoid the noun+ing construction (there's another earlier starting "the other three being the Black-eared Miner...")
  • That one-sentence final paragraph could surely be integrated into one of the previous paragraphs?
Expanded sentence so that it seems to belong in the first paragraph. Marj (talk) 07:49, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lit review: I think in general the overall coverage of the article is good, and comparable to other avian FAs. I did, however, find a few sources not yet used in the article (including some very recent) and have listed them on the article talk page—not with the expectation that they must be included, but with the hopes that the nominators would have a look and add any relevant or interesting material as they see fit (sorry for not doing this several months ago!).
  • That's ok. Have seen bits and pieces but is good to record why we'll use some and not others. Will update here once we've taken a look at them all. ok, have reviewed them and added most - alot on miner management :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:46, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I noticed that several of the journal articles used as references are lacking issue #'s even though this information is available by clicking through the DOI link. Sasata (talk) 17:48, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • an "In popular culture" section seems to be conspicuously absent; I would think that such a common and annoying species would have many cultural references. Am I wrong, or was this a conscious decision to leave it out? Sasata (talk) 19:07, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I did start compiling a list of films in which they appeared, but realised it was a list of every film shot in Aus. Marj (talk) 20:17, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that an IPC section is absent - I've been trying to find some aboriginal stories but found very little so far. Ditto modern pop culture - reminds me a bit of Common Starling as something, I dunno, a bit like a toilet - everyone has one but no-one really waxes lyrical about it...... Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:07, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • common names: why is it called a miner? The names "Mickey Miner" and "Soldierbird" are mentioned, but I could not verify these with the closest following citation. This snippet suggests that "cherry-eater" and "snake-bird" are alternative names. Sasata (talk) 21:14, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure if you'll be able to see this other snippet: "The origin of the term "miner" is obscure. It has no association with the mining fields but was applied by colonists at an early stage to the noisy miner (M. melanocephala), and may have been a mis-spelling for myna, or minah, ..." Sasata (talk) 21:23, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I get wary of tertiary sources - and have seen that written before but never in much detail or discussion. My impression was that it would be that the sooty faces that Tasmanian settlers of coalminers, but have never seen anything written. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:33, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Given that myna is a Tamil word, a generic term for starlings used in India, it seems unlikely that Australian settlers were using it to describe Miners. The black face explanation seems more likely, but I haven't seen it confirmed in writing. Marj (talk) 00:48, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Thanks for the additions and changes above; I think the article meets FA criteria. Sasata (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


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