Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Red-tailed Black Cockatoo

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 02:59, 11 September 2007.

[edit] Red-tailed Black Cockatoo

And now, after the Common Raven another sombre bird...the Red-tailed Black Cocky. I have worked on this until I feel it fulfils FA criteria. It is comprehensive, conforms to MOS, has a lead summarising the text and has had a a critique by good copyeditor. All images were taken by me or someone else who donated them themselves onto commons. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support I'm not sure I like the way we have several species with different conservation statuses in the same article under a LC infobox indicator. I would be happy if that indicator were replaced with "varies" or "see below" but otherwise, and excellent article. ←Ben^B4 06:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Good point. I've not seen that on other articles but I'll ferret around and see what the consensus is. Unless there is a consensus not to, I'll try to modify it. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose→Changed to Support - Hi there Cas. I've come across a few problems, most of which are totally fixable. Overall the article looks great, but as I said, a few things need attention.

1) At the beginning of the second opening paragraph is the sentence "...males are large black cockatoos, 60 cm (24 inches) in length, with prominent red tail bands...". The "males are large black cockatoos" part is a bit weird - I get what it's trying to say, but is there another way to rephrase it? The way the female description is given below the above sentence is much better in my opinion.

2) The third opening paragraph is unsual - it jumps from a trivial sentence about the parrot being a mascot, then goes to something scientific. Considering that the mascot sentence is included in the "Symbolism & Folklore" section at them bottom, I would consider removing that part from the lead and merging the remainder into the second opening paragraph.

3) Again in the third paragraph, there is the sentence "Of the black cockatoos, the red-tailed black is the most adaptable to aviculture, though they are much rarer and much more expensive outside Australia." - This needs to be sourced as I can't find that exact statement in the article text and it is stating an opinion which needs backing and citing.

4) In the "Taxonomy and naming", (the last para of) "Relationship with humans", "Distribution and habitat" and especially in the "Description" sections, all have paragraphs which are very short. These either need to be expanded or merged into other paragraphs.

5) - "...it takes a bird approximately 18 months to moult and grow into its adult feathers..." in the "Description" section needs to be cited.

6) - In the "Symbolism and folklore" section, the article has text about the cockatoo being a mascot for the 2006 Commonwealth games in Melbourne. However, I fail to see how this relates to eiter symbolism or folklore. If this is to be included in this section it should state if it being a mascot symbolised anything for those games (EG, the dragon was the mascot X year for X sports event because the organisers wanted to show the event's fiery competition). Otherwise, it either needs to be removed or the section needs to be renamed.

7) - The caption to the picture in the "Aviculture" section reads "Female pet." Compared to the other captions, this lets the team down. It needs to be expanded.

• Well that's it really. It's about 80-87% cited and seems to be in order in all other areas. I really hope you'll be able to fix these, but in the end, I think it'll be good for the article. Good luck and drop me a line when you feel you've completed some of the requests. Cheers Cas. :) Spawn Man 08:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, done all but left one-line about Karak and Commonwealth games in lead. Am happy to see how consensus falls for that one. Also, renamed Symb. and folkl. to Cultural depictions -yeah I know it's unoriginal but it covers the two points. Strike away cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the "consensus" trump card, IE, I'll won't do anything until the end of the FAC when nobody cares... ;) Seriously though, I think the sentence should go; it distracts the reader away from the scientific nature of the opening and you've already got it at the end of the article. But anyway, went through your edits and all looks well now. I just found one more problem which needs attention before I support - At the end of the "Description" section, there's a paragraph which reads "Several calls have been recorded. The contact call is a rolling metallic krur-rr or kree which may carry long distances and is always given while flying. Other calls include a sharp alarm call, and a sequence of a soft growling followed a repetitive kred-kred-kred-kred given by displaying males." This is completely weird - if you didn't know you were reading about a bird, you could've sworn it was an alarm clock or phone article. The structure is grammatically incorrect, as it doesn't give a subject - You need to rewrite it and possibly start off the first sentence with something like "Several of the Red-tailed Black Cockatoo's calls have been recorded... etc etc" instead of just jumping in with what's already there. The article's looking much better now - Could you not find a source for the moulting sentence from 5)? Anyway, as I said, great work and once that's cleared up, I'll support. Cheers, Spawn Man 03:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

(OK - I deleted teh line from the lead - it is pretty peripheral to the scheme of things and does sorta 'sit there' a bit. The ref on moulting was tricky and another definition/timeline was better - I think the first one was from before I did any edits on the article. The voices is doing my head in, now a bit better but a bit 'listy' that ok?)cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Lol - I thought you were talking about the voices in your head for a second there until I realised you meant the bird's calls (You did mean the bird's calls riight? Please tell you meant that...) ;) The article looks a lot better now thanks to my expertise ;) and as I said, I'll be able to support now. Cheers, Spawn Man 04:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC).

• Support with some comments

Of the black cockatoos, the red-tailed black is the most adaptable to aviculture, though they are much rarer and much more expensive outside Australia. It is unclear whether this means that it is much rarer and expensive outside of Australia than it it, or if it means that of the black cockatoos outside of Australia it is the rarer and more expensive one.

(I mean the first meaning, however I am debating to tack on "than within it" as it looks a bit unwieldy. I am happy to wait what others think and if people feel the less ambiguity a better tradeoff than flow I'll put it in. I hadn't thought of the 2nd meaning to be honest)

You only give common names for three of the five subspecies, do the other two not have them?

(Most subspecies lack common names, it's just that 3 of these have been given names though most would just call them RTBCs - do you think that is worth highlighting? And I'm not sure of a reference which particularly spells that out but that almost all birdbooks just call them RTBCs with no mention of subspecific names)

Until now, most birds in captivity have been of subspecies C. b. banksii and C. b. samueli, though more members of subspecies C. b. macrorhynchus should become available. I can't pin down why that bothers me, but it reads more like a trade article than an Wikipedia article. "Stocks have run low in the past, but more are on the way!" That sort of thing.

(True - even though from a reliable source it is still speculative. It was made I think as the northenr subspecies is the most plentiful and wit the idea the harvesting plan may come about which hasn't actually happened. I'll remove it.)

More aviculturists are concerned about maintaining the integrity of the separate subspecies in cultivation, and so avoid crossbreeding. Not a hundred percent sure why this follows from the last sentence or what it really has to do with anything.

(As with many critters, crossbreeding was comonplace though subspecfic integrity is becoming more and more recognised - I'll see what I can do) Anyway, aprt from thos minor niggles, good work. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

"You only give common names for three of the five subspecies, do the other two not have them?" - I was wondering about that too - would it be too much to ask for any names? I wont oppose if you can't, but it'd be great if we could... Spawn Man 03:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Support:

• Under "Distribution and habitat", it says, It is widespread and abundant in a broad band across the northern half of the country with more isolated distribution in the south. It has even been considered an agricultural pest there. Where has it been considered an agricultural pest? Australia in general, just the northern section, or just the southern? Right now, it looks like it's saying that it is considered a pest in the southern half. (eek! well spotted and fixed)
• The article uses both plural and singular when referring to "the Red-tailed Black Cockatoo" or "Red-tailed Black Cockatoos". It seems better to me to pick one and use it consistently. (A point worth raising but I'm looking and as it stands it is singular when talking about the specific entity, plural when talking about the birds as they are often gregarious, while singualr again when talking of mating display - I could change the last to plural then it is pretty consistently plural. I just played with it as all singular and I feel it was awkward. I'll see what I can do to make more plural - though I feel the flow of sentences is pretty good now)
• In places, the article refers to "the birds" or "the bird". Is it normal to do this rather than saying "the Red-tailed Black Cockatoo" or "it"? (it just reminds me of the Hitchcock movie) (I was just "mixing it up" as Dave Navarro would say but it's no biggie)
• Should the information in Aviculture about the egg hatching in 30 days and the eyes opening in 3 weeks, et cetera, be mentioned in the Reproduction section instead? Unless those times are particular to birds in captivity? (not at my house at the moment but the information came from observations of captive birds breeding so I guess it can't be strictly extrapolated to reporduction in the wild as such - which is why I left it there)

--Jude. 22:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support A strong article overall, neutral and comprehensive. Does an admirable job of not focusing on the interests of pet owners. VanTucky ^(talk) 00:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Well-referenced for a species that's not a household name and it covers all you'd expect. A few notes:

• I'm not sure about the "General" and "Specific" titles in the References section. I'd have Notes and References separate, listing the General (book) sources under the latter.

(I'm not fussed how it goes as long as the headings relate to each other - I initially used cited texts and references' as the books listed have the page numbers reffed in the other bit. It was all Circeus' idea....(shuffles feet and looks at ground) cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• Can you unpack "generic rather than infrageneric relationships were being examined." I assume these are the adjectival form of genus but they're specialized terms for most readers. Also, the article has just said it shares a genus with another bird, thus the line doesn't quite add up.

Sorry, what I meant was (and rephrase if you wish - the study was looking at an overview of cocky relationships between the groups, so they only bothered with one of the five black cockies of Calyptorhynchus as they are all clearly closely related. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• Prose is good, except for some punctuation issues. I'll finish going through it. Marskell 12:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Cont'd. I'll note conditional support pending someone looking at ref formatting (they look good at a glance, but I don't have a great attention span; might ask Sandy to stop by). By and large this all seems good fine. A few more notes:

• Audit for consistency in although / though. I prefer the former.
• I'll be honest that I still don't get point two above... If they're comparing between groups why only choose one species? Put another way, is it groups within species (with this species as an example), species within the genus, or species/genera within the family? If either of the last two it doesn't make sense to me.

Within the cockatoos, the clearest thing is that the 5 black cockatoos are very closely related, but outside that there is/was conjecture about relationships, including between black and white cockatoos and within the white cockatoo genus, as well as the other odd ones. Thus, for convenience, they only tested the RTBC.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• One thing I've noticed in the prose is difficult comma lists. This is still in: "...in four scattered populations: in central coastal Western Australia from the Pilbara south to the northern Wheatbelt in the vicinity of Northam, and inland river courses in Central Australia, southwestern Queensland and the upper Darling River system in Western New South Wales." OK, I can work this out but it's more difficult than it should be. Semi-colon lists are often preferable, or simply break it up into two or three short declaratives. I've done that a couple of times with other sentences in the article.

Great, thanks.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• Confused over: "In southwest Western Australia, both subspecies there [now: "both extant subspecies"] appear to have a north-south pattern; northwards after breeding in the case of subspecies naso, while movements by subspecies samueli in the wheatbelt can be irregular and unrelated to the seasons." Only one appears to have a north-south pattern, right? Marskell 19:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

No, both do but the latter can be irregular as well and follow no pattern...cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:19, 10 September 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.