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Saint Croix Macaw

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: List as GA. Concerns raised about the article have been fixed by the careful and collaborative work of editors contributing to this reassessment. Thanks to these efforts I believe the article can now be listed as a GA. Geometry guy 21:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article (version of article) was nominated for GA Dec 30th, and failed Jan 1st. The primary reason the article was failed was the assertion that the article could not be comprehensive because a lot of things are not known yet, which would be impossible as this is an extinct bird. In other words, information that is not yet available in reliable sources or even unreliable sources for that matter. The article was failed before I could even respond to the incorrect assessment of the rules by this third party.

Today, I have updated the article according to the comments of the reviewer, bascially made it more comprehensive, and organized the information in subheaders. I also added a few relevant tidbits. The total length of the article has doubled, although some of that is side effect of adding subheaders. The current article size is approaching the size of the smallest FAs, but more importantly, is complete comprehensive based on what is available.

The key aspect to be discussed here is the interpretation of of rule 3a: it addresses the main aspects of the topic. When I read Wikipedia:What_the_Good_article_criteria_are_not#Broad_in_its_coverage, it states:

Taken together, these criteria mean that no obviously important information should be entirely absent from the article, and the level of detail should be appropriate to the significance of the information.

This is in stark contrast with the assertion from User:Snowman who stated that [1]:

This article will never be "Broad in its coverage"; see 3a Wikipedia:Good article criteria. From only a few bones that have been found and with extremely unlikely future significant advances, this article will almost certainly never be able to provide much information about this parrot - it will probably never be known what colour its feathers were, size of parrot, range, nesting, diet, social behaviour, taxonomy, ancestry, and so on.

Crucially, the difference is between comprehensive of what is known versus comprehensive of what could be known. As far as I can tell from discussion especially on the FA talk pages, the criterion is that an article should be comprehensive with regard of what is known, aka, what is reported in the literature.

The second aspect by user User:Snowman is the usage of primary sources. Of the sources used, one is a primary source (Wetmore 1937), one mixed article with primary data and secondary review of existing literature (Olsen 2008), while the remaining are secondary or even tertiary sources. Some FAs are based entirely on one or two primary sources because sometimes, that is all there is available. The point is that the primary sources should be used with caution, not excluded.

Based on these reasons, I have not renominated the article because the issue of length might come up again. I therefore ask that the article is reassessed. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 03:41, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: You mention an undescribed Ara from Haiti, but Olson and Máiz López (2008) state that "Contrary to previous belief, there is no historical evidence for a macaw from Hispaniola." Olson and Máiz López (2008) also provide a more detailed description of the animal's morphology, which should be incorporated into the Wikipedia article. They also mention the possible identity with A. autocthones of an Ara fossil from Montserrat. Ucucha 11:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for your comment. You are correct, I had missed that Olson had already demolished the claim of macaws from Hispaniola. I have updated the article accordingly. I have added the possible third specimen from Montserrat. I will also include more details about the morphology. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 20:15, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Done, it might a copy edit (English is not my native tongue and I am dyslexic), but all info should be there.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 21:45, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Wikipedia articles describe what is known and verifiable based on reliable sources. Breadth of coverage should be interpreted in that light. Information which is not known cannot be missing - indeed it is not "information" at all. Geometry guy 14:36, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Coverage aside, one key GA criterion is that the lead should stand alone as a summary of the article. It needs some expansion to do so now. Geometry guy 23:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, I expanded it with what I think is the main points. And thank you for the copy edit. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:48, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You are welcome. I've done the same with the lead. If I have introduced any errors or unverifiable material in any of my edits, please fix them. Geometry guy 01:52, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    All fine, I liked the way you solved the third side issue. So, thank you again for your help. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:56, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: At the time of nomination GA1 the article was a Start class article (see archive file) and had the appearance of a Start class article (or even a Stub because it did not have any headings or visual aids). Focus (talk · contribs), the reviewer, who failed the GA1 did not say a lot about why it failed except that there was a lot of research that was not in the article and he appeared to agree with me that the subject matter has a lot of known unknowns. During the course of this GAR, I think that User Focus's decision to fail GA1 should be supported, partly because he was reviewing a Start class article and the spirit of assessment for GA is that the nominated article should be nearly at GA (say B or good C), and I think that this alone justifies an early rejection of GA at that time. I think that there are profound issues about the use of un-reviewed research papers, however good they may be, on the wiki and especially to establish an article on an extinct Ara species on the wiki, bearing in mind the number of hypothetical extinct species that have been contrived throughout history. Snowman (talk) 10:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You are misrepresenting the facts. Focus first wrote: I just read through it, and I can't find anything else wrong, apart from (possibly) comprehensiveness. The else was usage of headers. I agreed with that and his suggestion to use headers. At that time, it was not failed. It was failed after you suggested that the criterion should what comprehensive with regard what COULD be known, not with regard to what IS known. FA and GA articles are not judged with regard to known unknowns, but should be comprehensive with regard to what is represented in reliable sources. See for example this recent FA discussion Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_criteria#Minimum_size_for_FAs.3F. This article is now within the length of the shortest FA's and IMHO far more comprehensive than needed for a GA that requires all major points to be raised, not to be all inclusive of everything we know. But heck, that will make the FA nomination only easier.
    What is even more troubling is the WP:OR that you are displaying here. You make it sound that the article is solely based on 'un-reviewed' peer-reviewed research articles, which is incorrect. If you check the reference list, you see more secondary and tertiary sources than peer-reviewed primary sources, all accepting this species as a valid species. You call that "un-reviewed"?And yes, primary sources can be used in articles. You suggestion that this article might not be valid (which you have expressed before) based on the absence of DNA (Surely, unless DNA evidence shows otherwise, this species must be considered a hypothetical species.) or the suggestion above that there are "profound issues about the use of un-reviewed research papers, however good they may be, on the wiki and especially to establish an article on an extinct Ara species on the wiki, bearing in mind the number of hypothetical extinct species that have been contrived throughout history.". Trying to rewrite the science literature by suggesting that the bones are not of a valid species accepted by all authorities is nothing short of original research. Whole fields of science are based on bones alone.
    The ironic part is that the article as I nominated it was LESS reliant on the "un-reviewed" peer-reviewed primary source articles than the current version. That article as was was more in line with your prefference of not using "un-reviewed" peer-reviewed primary sources than the current expanded article based on the suggestions of the reviewers to include more of those "un-reviewed" peer-reviewed primary sources.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:19, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Some comments:
    1. Please keep discussion unrelated to the content and GA criteria to a minimum: the purpose of GAR is determine whether the article meets the GA criteria (see the reassessment talk page).
    2. WikiProject assessments are not part of the GA criteria (rather the GA criteria are part of WikiProject assessments). While WikiProject assessments can be helpful, they may also be misleading, and the tail does not wag the dog. For example, an article which is "only" start class for a WikiProject might be quite close to or quite far from meeting the GA criteria depending on the nature of the article.
    3. It is more important that an article is verifiable, neutral and free of original research than it is comprehensive, and the GA criteria reflect this. Primary sources may be used, as long as the article does not engage in original research (e.g. by synthesis of primary source material).
    For example, the statement "The presence of a macaw on Hispaniola as claimed by Wetmore was later refuted." may be a disagreement among primary sources, or it may be the current consensus: which it is should be made clear, and if secondary sources are not available, Wikipedia should not take sides, or synthesise the arguments. If in doubt about the status of primary source material or whether its inclusion constitutes synthesis, cut it. Kim van der Linde's comments suggest to me that while the process of expansion may have led to some improvements, it may also have driven the inclusion of some material that needs to be trimmed. Geometry guy 15:16, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, I have commented out the sentence in question because it is not about this species. I could write a whole paragraph about that one aspect, as there is substantial written about it, with the consensus that there is no such species at Hispanola. As for primary sources, I saw that Pennatomys was just promoted, an article effectively based on one single primary source. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 16:11, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    By the very nature of the GA process (mostly one nominator/reviewer at a time), WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments are particularly inappropriate, either pro or against listing. And I say that without prejudice as to whether that article meets the GA criteria (any editor who believes it does not can open a reassessment at any time). Geometry guy 16:24, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You are right, point taken! -- Kim van der Linde at venus 16:46, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Questions: I am not exactly certain of the purpose of this GAR. Snowman (talk) 11:01, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    <General process questions moved to the talk page of this reassessment>
  • Re: File:Macaw-bone-sizes.svg. It is a excellent chart, but it is a simple extraction of primary source information, which I think should be dealt with more cautiously. It has been added to the article after GA1. It makes a visual comparison that is not present in the research papers, and it may over-simplify complex discussion. Information from primary sources are added to articles with caution on the wiki. I would not know what to say about the bone sizes on the wiki in the absence of a published review; nevertheless, I think that it may be best to be very cautious with this primary-source information and not mention the bone sizes. A genuine publicised review may well consider the sizes in a highly analytical way and may consider many confounding influences; for example: the Yellow-and-blue Macaw lives in a vast range and it may be genetically slightly different in various parts of its range and have different sizes; I understand that a number of measurements were of captive macaws and they may grow differently on different diets in captivity; some of the fossil bones are said to be from a juvenile bird; many of the species in the chart are polymorphic (with subspecies) and so size differences between subspecies do not show up when each species are treated as a single group. I think that there are many aspects of these sizes which could be discussed in a published review by an author, preferably at some distance from the published research projects, to give expert opinions on the sizes of the bones. Of course, it is not the role of the wiki to constructively criticise a published paper in a wiki article. I think that this chart of extracted primary-source un-reviewed information should not be on the wiki. Snowman (talk) 18:12, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The data is reported as is, with only conclusions as in the published articles. There is no original research. Notice, I even plotted the data of Wetmore separate from the data of Olson, to avoid averaging data from two primary sources, so that it would not contain any synthesis based on primary material. Again, what you ask me to do here is to apply original research on the article by eliminating straight facts based on assumptions and interpretations that are not supported by reliable sources. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 18:29, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • It may be that it is the text rather than the image where more caution would be helpful. For example, greater use could be made of in text attribution, particularly for the primary results of Olsen and Maiz-Lopez. Verifiability (in the form of inline citation) only provides the reader with an off-wiki source for material in the article, it does not attribute the material to the source. Adding in-text attribution such as "According to Olsen and Maiz-Lopez" or "Olsen and Maiz-Lopez conclude that", immediately locates an idea with a particular source, alerting the reader to intellectual property and opinion alike. Wetmore and Olsen/Maiz-Lopez should probably be attributed even in the lead.
Also note that Olsen and Maiz-Lopez can be used as secondary sources for Wetmore's findings, as can the short paragraph in Williams and Steadman. The latter paragraph also refers to Olsen 1978 and Wing 1989, which might be useful secondary sources, even if the primary material in these articles is uninteresting or insubstantial.
And (I know this is obvious), the techniques can be combined, in that one can attribute to Wetmore and cite e.g. Olsen. The aim is to indicate to readers where the article relies upon primary sources, and where there is wider acceptance of primary source material. Geometry guy 20:04, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose technically these are part primary sources and part secondary sources. Presumably, all these authors who have discovered parrot fossil bones have high hopes for there work. I wonder if they are all speaking from the same side of the argument. Would you expect them to be sceptical? I am sure that these research papers are very good; however, I think that there are potential pitfalls when there is not a published review from a reviewer significantly distant from the discovery of the fossils. I am concerned about sources for use on the wiki, and this is not criticising the authors or the papers, which I am sure are of a high standard. There does not appear to be a holistic (ie a paper reviewing all the information available of these fossils) secondary source on the topic of these papers. My main point is that I think caution is needed in the use of primary sources on the wiki. Snowman (talk) 22:13, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that caution is needed where primary sources are concerned, but your speculations about the motivations of authors in this field would have to be sourced before they can be given any credence. Indeed, I noted above an example of refutation in the field, and see no evidence here of the scientific process being compromised. Geometry guy 23:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In retrospect, I think that my unfounded speculation was not needed. This is because the wiki deals with possible uncertainty within primary sources by its general caution with primary sources. Unfounded speculation has strike out line. Snowman (talk) 23:35, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have added the Wing and Olson 1978 papers. They are both secondary papers and confirm what the rest was saying. In general, the sources are in full agreement with each other. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:23, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I worked in the attribution for statements based on a single primary source. I personally do not like it in the lead, but I can live with that.-- Kim van der Linde at venus
Agreed. The sentence was actually a relict from the Hispanola Macaw stuff, and I therefore deleted the whole sentence section. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 00:09, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Probably should say what is known about when the taxa went extinct. Could also say when the parrots that were the origin of the sub-fossils were estimated to have been alive. Snowman (talk) 01:21, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, there is no speculation in the literature about when the specie went extinct. Wetmore is silent on the age, but Olson and Máiz López have dated it and provide details about the dig and environment. I have added the latter in a separate section at the end, although I feel like it would be better positioned at the beginning of the article. But that is up for discussion. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 15:11, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Idea: one thing I have been thinking off is to modify the cockatoo skeleton image at commons and color the bones that have been found so that people get a visual idea about where the bones are located. Good or bad? I have tried to find a drawing of a macaw skeleton, but not find one. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 16:38, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    My knowledge of comparative osteology of birds in not very good. I am not sure how similar macaw bones are to cockatoo bones or other birds' bones. I would probably only show macaw bones on this article. The linked articles on "tibiotarsus" and "tarsometatarsus" could be expanded. Presumably bird muscles are attached to bird bones in a similar way in different bird species. Snowman (talk) 20:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Skeleton drawing of a unknown species of parrot by Richard Lydekker with in red the bones available for the Saint Croix Macaw.
The main bones are the same. In birds, one of the major differences is the number of vertebrae in the neck, but I don;t know how different that is among parrots. In that way, there is not a major issue, the main difference is the look of the beak. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 20:33, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is probably not worth the effort of specially making images of the bones for this article. Snowman (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I will see how time it costs. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 00:04, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Done. read it wrong, the separate head was a cockatoo, so that problem is solved. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 00:46, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My first impression is that the new image is good (without checking the accuracy of red zones). Snowman (talk) 16:27, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question. It is great to see such refined improvements taking place to the article. However, if editors concur that the article meets the GA criteria, then I am willing to close this reassessment (with thanks to all for their efforts), and list the article as a GA. Geometry guy 23:20, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I think there is not much more than can be done about this article, but I am the nominator, so I have no say in the closing and promotion. Next step, FA. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 00:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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