Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/American Goldfinch

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.

[edit] American Goldfinch

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. Yomangani^talk 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 Y Done
  • units need to be given consistently in Imperial as well as metric units Y Done
  • American v British English needs checking (I still found some examples of mixing and I wasn't looking very hard) Y 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.Y Done Yomangani^talk 14:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

• Minor oppose Well 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. Y 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 inconsistant. Number ranges should use ndashes and not hyphens or the word "and". see WP:DASH. Y 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). Y Done

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.Y 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. Y 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. Y 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. Y Done
  • Grammar (section 2): "A tsee-tsi-tsi-tsit, call is often given in flight..." No comma required before the word call. Y 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. Y 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. Y 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=atom^{Talk•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=atom^{Talk•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)

• Minor oppose Support - 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)

• 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.