Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Great Barrier Reef/archive1

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 not promoted 16:31, 31 March 2007.

[edit] Great Barrier Reef

I was using this page for much research and this article answered every single question I had. Also, no missing citations. Very good article in my opinion. A•N•N•Afoxlover hello! 20:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment Whats here is reasonable, good in places. But the article is heavily slanted towards human interactions with the reef. Two small sections on geography and species of the reef are unbalanced compared to the threats and uses section. The species of the reef section is also heavily balanced towards large fauna, vertebrates basically. No mention is made of the ecology and biological processes of the reef (except insofar as how we are destroying it), the reef cays, and in general I don't think the natural side of the story is covered in enough depth. Sorry. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:34, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

About the "No mention is made of the ecology and biological processes of the reef (except insofar as how we are destroying it), the reef cays, and in general I don't think the natural side of the story is covered in enough depth.", the German Wikipedia has some information on that side of things. I believe the article there has some kind of Good Article-like status. Unfortunately, I don't speak German. I filed a translation request some six months ago, but nothing has come of it as of yet. (I've just done a horrible google-translation of the page... erk!) As for the bias towards the big and beautiful, I chose animals to feature in there based on what Wikipedia had articles for. (Although I did create the soft corals article myself, cos I couldn't believe it wasn't there...) -Malkinann 04:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Oppose Certainly a good article (love some of the pictures!), just not up to featured quality.

• The lead should be re-written to summarize more of the topics contained in the body.
• More about the geological/biological history of the reef. Include human uses (indigenous and "western/European" as well)
• Species reads like a "paragraph-ized" list and should be significantly expanded to cover the interactions between other ecosystems (open ocean, land, etc), natural predatory hierarchies and ecological stasis (what depends on what?), migration patterns, etc.
• "Environmental threats" read like stubs. The topics in human use should be promoted to their own categories and expanded more.

A quick read left me wanting to know more -- in good and bad senses alike. Madcoverboy 22:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Woah! Thanks for your faith in the article Anna (I've been working on and off it for about two years) but it's just plain not comprehensive enough for FA. It is a *huge* topic, and the article has slanted towards what's available/fashionable - which is the environmental threats. I've been a bit hesitant to add more information about the species on the GBR, as I'm not sure how much I could add from http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/corp_site/info_services/publications/misc_pub/fauna_flora without it being a copyvio. In regards to Indigenous Australians, there's not a lot of information out there about how they used the GBR long ago. I've even attempted to look in "the literature", and I couldn't find useful information. If anyone would like to assist in the article, there's a very full to do list on the talk page, and I'll add any good points from this FAC. Madcoverboy, what do you mean by "The topics in human use should be promoted to their own categories and expanded more."?? I've been thinking of spinning out a page called Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef, is that what you mean? -Malkinann 02:18, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment I agree with above comments. The lead needs some work to get to FA standard as it should be expanded and summarize the article. The article also needs a cleanup in my view. Lots of one sentence paragraphs - pull these together into common thoughts. Expand and split (if approved) the sections that need those tasks and remove the banners. Perhaps a See also to direct me to similar articles that are not directly referenced in the article - other major reefs. Morphh ^(talk) 1:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Please can you be specific about what other content you think the article should have?

I don't know much about the reef so I couldn't say what it should have. When I mentioned expanding, I was looking at your mention above that it wasn't comprehensive enough and the fact that it has tags (for expanding) on Geology and geography, Species, & Fishing. Morphh ^(talk) 17:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The article won't pass FA this time, but specifics would be appreciated for any future attempt. -Malkinann 02:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

What kind of information would you like to see, then? I wrote a decent slab of the article, in my initial contributions, from my school notes, and as such, the article should serve school students well. For Featured Article, it has to be able to serve other audiences. Part of my trouble is that the most comprehensive resource available is the GBRMPA website, and I don't have the skill to tease out more than a paragraph and a half from any one page of theirs without feeling guilty. For example, I get the feeling that I could expand the 'species' section a lot from here, but I feel uneasy using just the one source, even if it is the best source available. (that, and it breaks my brain every time I try to read it.) -Malkinann 21:28, 24 March 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.