Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Delichon/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 promoted by Karanacs 21:30, 9 March 2010 [1].

Delichon

Nominator(s): Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:22, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Featured article candidates/Delichon/archive1

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe I've achieved an appropriate balance between this genus article and the species accounts which make up the GT. I've also tried to balance the well-studied D. urbicum and the less familiar Asian species. I've been honing and adding for months, and I can't think of anything else! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:22, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. No dab links, external links fine, alt text fine. Ucucha 13:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support—My concerns have been addressed and I believe this article meets the FA criteria.—RJH (talk) 17:57, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments—It looks close to meeting the FA criteria, but please check the following:
- ~~"It is thought that..." and "It has been proposed that..." may be considered weasel words.~~
  - Well, the views are referenced, but I've named names now to make explicit Jimfbleak - talk to me?
- ~~"...are normally brief" is vague. Is it 'brief' as in minutes or 'brief' as in a couple of weeks? Please clarify.~~
  - made it clear we're talking minutes Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:26, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I think the paragraph that begins "The main predators of the house martins are typically..." needs some work. Is the 'typically' needed? (It implies exceptions, which are not discussed.) Are the remaining sentences about "birds" specific to house martins or do they apply to all birds?
  - dropped "typically", also dropped lead clause of para 2 to make it clear it's the house martins, not other flea-ridden birds Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:26, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks.—RJH (talk) 22:46, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for taking the time to comment Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:26, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thank you for producing a fine article.—RJH (talk) 17:57, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
thanks again Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support seems to meet the FA criteria, and a good job of balancing coverage of the three species—a model for future genus FAs. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 21:03, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for kind words Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Taxonomy - The long preamble about the swallow family seems a bit out of place, taking as long as it does to even mention the genus in question. Perhaps a first line saying "The three species of Delichon are found in the swallow family..."?

changed as suggested and slightly trimmed long para Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Distribution - could do a slightly better job of clarifying the ranges of Common and Asian species. I initially imagined that that two met somewhere in central Asia and there was little overlap, but then the Common is referred to as the northern species, suggesting that the Common reaches all the way to the Pacific.

clarified than Common reaches the Pacific and breeds further north than Asian

Description - perhaps some weights?

Good idea, done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise this looks fine. Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thnks for the helpful comments, it's difficult when you are so close to an article to see it as others do Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support now. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:10, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support a few comments below. Some rather long sentences could be split for easier reading. Shyamal (talk) 09:03, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"...benefited historically from forest clearance..." - the "historically" at this position causes some association problems, perhaps the exact epoch could be mentioned so that the next part "more recently" is also made clear.

I've tweaked and tightened the text, and removed "historically" since deforestation had probably been occurring over millenia Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:16, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the taxonomy section, it is noted that they are easily identifiable as a group - however their taxonomy has been quite a mess and Rasmussen & Anderton note that the distributions of the species in the South Asia region are in need of fresh verification.

Confusion between the members of the genus mean that their distributions in the South Asia region need further research.<ref name= pcr/> Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:10, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the lead - "...although widespread declines in Common House Martin numbers have been reported from central and northern Europe, due to factors" - is very long and the commas are a bit confusing.

Now two sentences Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:05, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"infected by fleas" - not sure if infected is right, may be "carry" ?

Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:05, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for review and helpful comments Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:16, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And thanks for improving my text Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support (Disclosure: I did the GA review) Reading the article again, everything looks fine to me. I tweaked the refs a bit. Just two things: current ref #33 (Distribution of British Fleas) doesn't seem to be at all useful, and ref #36 has a species name linked in the journal article title. I'm not sure if there's any policy against this, but it seems a little unusual. Sasata (talk) 16:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for reviewing and tidying the refs. I've removed the redundant ref, and delinked the swallow - that doesn't look like one of my edits. I also noticed that the language was indicated differently to my practice, so I changed that too. thanks for support Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.