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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 3:31, 25 June 2022 (UTC) [1].

Antarctica

[edit]
Notified: Mahanga and 13 others, WP Deserts, WP Protected areas, WP Russia, WP Antarctica, WP Climate change, WP Geography, ‎talk page notification 2021-11-29

I am nominating this featured article for review under the "comprehensive" criteria, because although some work has been done it seems there are still things which need fixing - for example whales and toothfish mentioned at Talk:Antarctica/Archive 3#Funk's look at biodiversity Chidgk1 (talk) 14:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I mentioned copyediting, sourcing, and cleanup needs in the 2021-11-29 notification. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:15, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried to clean up as many of the issues raised by User:SandyGeorgia and User:FunkMonk as possible, but there's surely more if anyone's willing to take another look. Devonian Wombat (talk) 13:09, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Have done a bit of copyediting, but there's surely more if anyone's willing to take another look. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:19, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just noting I'm keeping an eye on the edits, and happy to help with the climate and sea ice sections. Femke (talk) 17:20, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've taken a look at the images and the duplinks (now mostly sorted) as well as the sources, the latter needs more work on formatting, etc.. Amitchell125 (talk) 14:31, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would be happy to help with source formatting—though it is a bit concerning that there aren't more book length surveys used (and the ones that are used and hardly cited). Aza24 (talk) 08:04, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Aza24: Agreed, now wading through the books and journals cited to format them properly, with a view to using the better ones more than they are at present. I'd like to move across to Harvard formatting at some point. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amitchell125 (talk • contribs)
I would warn against moving to harv formatting for an article of broad interest. For climate change, it's been an utter horror, having to explain to new and intermediate (and many experienced) users how their contributions need to change to be compliant with FA criteria and always having to change the formatting into harv. Femke (talk) 17:57, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Femkemilene, but that's not been my experience with FAR. Once the swap over is made (a large job for one editor, but not too difficult), it shouldn't be too big an issue. Citing the same book with different pages (something I can see being done here to improve the citations) is a lot easier for me, and maybe others, if the harv system is in place and there's a list of Sources in a separate section. Amitchell125 (talk) 18:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC).[reply]
I'm mostly struggling with shoehorning scientific papers and news articles into the harv style. Books are of course fine :). Femke (talk) 19:09, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I do think harv formatting for the books is a good bare minimum. I get Femke's reservation, but if we do it for the articles we can get a better view of the article's current state. Anything without page numbers might be too messy to use harv fmt for. Aza24 (talk) 23:06, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The way I do it is to use the pages of the papers and to omit newspapers since they are seldom the best source available. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:41, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not familiar with how harv formatting deals with citations without an author byline, can it represent them adequately? Devonian Wombat (talk) 23:27, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In climate change, we put the newspaper in there rather than the author for all news articles cited. Messy and time-consuming. Newish editors get confused. We're now transitioning towards non harvnb for journals and news articles.
That said, the transition to sfn was helpful to get a better sense of sources, and prune less reliable ones out, like Aza said. Femke (talk) 19:09, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Will do the move to sfn for books next week if nobody objects, and have mentioned this in the talk page. Amitchell125 (talk) 14:33, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Next—remaining repetitions in the text, and redundant words. Amitchell125 (talk) 18:28, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Femkemilene, looking at the structure of the article, the History section mentions terms introduced in the Geography section further down (Antarctic Circle, Transantarctic Mountains, Mount Erebus, Ross Island). What do you think about swapping the two sections around, as is the case with North America and South America? Imo it would make sense. Amitchell125 (talk) 09:01, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it could work if 'history of exploration' is moved all the way before population. In that way, we have a nice switch between non-human and human.
A unrelated change of structure could be to put 'economy' and 'research' together under a 'human activity' header. That way, we'll get rid of the weird level-2 header of astrophysics. Femke (talk) 09:21, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nice idea, I'm going to be bold and go ahead. Amitchell125 (talk) 13:02, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Femkemilene: Text now moved and titles amended, please add subsection titles if you think these are needed. Amitchell125 (talk) 14:09, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Next—replacing any unreliable sources, adding citations where needed. Amitchell125 (talk) 18:15, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nearly sorted. AM
Next—tweaking the Bibliography/References sections to ensure the formatting is done consistently. Amitchell125 (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Prompted by this talkpage post, I had a look at the article and believe it to be deficient in its coverage of the non-mainland areas of Antarctica. Coverage in the geography section is limited to a See also and a brief mention of Ross Island/Mount Erebus, and there is a single mention in Climate of Signy Island. I would not expect a huge amount of space to be devoted to them, but the Geography section should at least be clear that (as with other landmasses discussed as continents) islands are often considered part of the topic in question, and perhaps go into where those islands are (eg. a note on those above and below the 60th parallel). Islands are covered in the Biodiversity, History of Exploration, Population, and Politics, but this comes without a general coverage of the topic at an earlier point. CMD (talk) 04:55, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

CMD, I don't agree with your statement. We have a separate article Antarctic, which covers the continent + surrounding islands. Increasing the coverage of islands here just blurs the line between the two articles. (wanted to flag this up, as I've just deleted the sentence about Signey Island in Climate). Femke (talk) 08:50, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That looks like a very poor quality fork which should be merged and redirected. We don't exclude Great Britain from the Europe article or Madagascar from the Africa article, the same in terms of comprehensiveness applies to this article. CMD (talk) 09:18, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell nobody has ever formally proposed a merge before - so I have now at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Antarctica#Merger_proposal Chidgk1 (talk) 09:48, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia Sorry I don't understand what you are asking me to do here. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:11, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hold, work underway Thanks everyone for all your endeavours so far and glad you are still improving this very important article. Chidgk1 (talk) 07:07, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not there yet; a complete read-through is needed. Just glancing in quickly I found basic issues: [2] Please have a look at prose, wikilinking, and paragraph structure. "In the mid-1970s, a coalition of international environmental protection organisations launched a public campaign to pressure governments to prevent mining in Antarctica." And ??? A one-sentence paragraph left hanging. "Overland sightseeing flights operated out of Australia and New Zealand until the Mount Erebus disaster in 1979, which killed all 257 people aboard." Aboard what? I have to click out to find out what Mount Erebus disaster refers to. There is a maintenance tag in the Ice sheet loss section. Prose is not at FA level throughout (although some sections are OK), and attention to flow and paragraph structure is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:02, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • The first child born in the southern polar region was a Norwegian girl, Solveig Gunbjørg Jacobsen, born in Grytviken on 8 October 1913.[note 7] Why a note and not a citation?
  • Emilio Marcos Palma was the first person born south of the 60th parallel south, the first born on the Antarctic mainland, and the only living human to be the first born on any continent.[179] This is a 1986 source; no as of, no idea if this person is still "the only living human". (I see there was more detail in the pre-FAR version.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:22, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Femkemilene are you able to dig in here? The writing needs a top-to-bottom review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:07, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Devonian Wombat are you able to help with any of the remaining issues I mentioned above? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:17, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have time to bring this one over the line; unless someone can, it should move to FARC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:44, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have the necessary prose skills to rewrite the article's prose to be FA quality, though I can fix some of the more basic problems. Devonian Wombat (talk) 11:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know the Guild of Copyeditors have never been through it - should I ask them to have a go at the prose? Chidgk1 (talk) 16:09, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe wait to see first what Femke says? Sometimes with GOCE, you get someone not accustomed to FA-level work. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:11, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I hope to have some energy this weekend for this. Femke (talk) 16:33, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I've slowed down to a stop on this one. Other articles and real life have taken over. Best, Amitchell125 (talk) 16:41, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OK, Femke, I will hold off, but unless someone is able to bring this over the line (which means a solid copyedit top-to-bottom), we may need a move to FARC. Please let us know, since Amitchell125 seems busy and no one else has stepped up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:34, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Don't want to squander Femkes talents on a mere copyedit so have asked at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors/Requests#Antarctica Chidgk1 (talk) 14:40, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry my prose and knowledge of the topic aren't good enough to take on this article; take care to keep an eye on GOCE edits, depending on who shows up, as not all of them improve the prose without affecting source-to-text integrity. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Sandy here. While the GOCE does good work, a specialist really needs to work on ones like these, or you run the risk of introducing unintentional errors or breaking source-text integrity. Fixing prose isn't something that can be simply fixed by a copyedit a lot of the time. Sourcing and prose need to go hand-in-hand, and if you try to work on prose without being super familiar with the sourcing, it can introduce issues if you're not familiar with the material. Hog Farm Talk 14:17, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Another argument to skip GOCE this time is that they have a large backlog. We don't want to hold up the process for two months. Anyway, with my long COVID, I'm trying to avoid doing more difficult things on Wikipedia, so a copy-edit is just about perfect. Femke (talk) 16:49, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OK I'll leave it in the queue for now just in case as you are right they won't pick it up for a while, and you can cancel it (or ask me to) if/whenever you think is the right time to do so. Chidgk1 (talk) 17:14, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Going into more detail here. Fixed the [note 7] thingie. I'll try to address some of these later, but don't count on me

  • The lede is a bit short. It does not mention climate change, the ozone hole, tourism
  • The 200 mm does not seem repeated in the body / is uncited
  • The -63 degrees seems not repeated in body
  • The United States Exploring Expedition is only mentioned in the lede
  • In 2004, a potentially active underwater volcano was found in the Antarctic Peninsula by American and Canadian researchers -> do we know more?
  • temperatures there can reach -90 -> this seems to contradict the fact that -89.2 is the lowest temperature measured. Might be true, as satellite measurements don't count for records.. Will need to check source quality

(reviewed up to Climate). Femke (talk) 17:55, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Failed verification for precipitation amounts
  • First two sentence of second paragraph lack adequate sourcing
  • The sentence "there is some evidence ..." is cited to a 2008 source, which is too old for such a statement. I've spent some time finding a newer source, but no success.
  • The paragraph of ice shelf collapse is too much focussed on the 2000-2010 decade; also, we have another paragraph about ice shelves later on
  • The loss of mass from Antarctica's ice sheet is partially offset by additional snow falling back onto the continent -> Weird start of sentence. What loss?
  • East Antarctica, which occupies most of the continent, is dominated by accumulated snow moves flows the sea as ice. -> clarification needed
  • The ozone hole section doesn't explain why ozone depletion was highest over Antarctica (I think it's some katalytic reaction on atmospheric ice crystals that only form there??)

(reviewed up to biodiversity) Femke (talk) 07:49, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • The first sentence of biodiversity is attributed to a person, not a great start. Study from 2014. Now accepted wisdom?
  • The snow petrel is one of only three birds that breed exclusively in Antarctica -> I think this source only supports the statement that the snow petrel breeds in Antarctica
  • Plant growth is restricted to a few weeks in the summer -> failed verification
  • no citation for statement about algae

(reviewed up to History of exploration) Femke (talk) 19:49, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Update: I'm willing to try and take this over the finish line, but it'll take some time. I'll be on holiday till the end of the month, so bear with me. Femke (talk) 18:52, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:20, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Copy-edit by GOCE done. It was a new editor with a good eye for underlinking, and for unclear/overly technical statements (some of the other aspects needed reverting). I'm still working on improving source quality / checking text-source integrity. I'm going at a glacial pace, and may need another 8 weeks to finish. Femke (talk) 08:22, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update Almost there. I would like to work a bit more on the research section (why omit all Latin Americans research stations, but include smaller Western stations?). The issues I've been tackling have been quite extensive (as expected from an old article such as this): quite a few factual errors removed, many instances of sources not checking out. As such, I would very much welcome comments from others before I'm comfortable having this FAR closed. User:FunkMonk: do you have time for another look over the biodiversity section? Femke (talk) 19:45, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I will take a look soon. FunkMonk (talk) 16:48, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it looks fine now. FunkMonk (talk) 15:29, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Close without FARC thanks Femkemilene and everyone else for all your suggestions and improvements Chidgk1 (talk) 09:03, 23 June 2022 (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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