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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ruffed lemur/archive1

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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 20:41, 21 July 2009 [1].

Ruffed lemur

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Nominator(s): Visionholder (talk) 06:18, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that it meets the requirements for a FA. –Visionholder (talk) 06:18, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I can not understand how is it possible to have 20 to 75 references (in this article) per one single-page source. Does it mean those sources are entirely rewritten here (meaning no offense) ? Materialscientist (talk) 06:33, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The sources are very dense, stating most of the known facts about the species. To write the article, I accumulated quotations from each of these books pertaining to a particular topic, then wrote about that topic, citing the books that supported what I wrote. There may be a few quotes from these sources, but for the most part, I tried to just use books as sources. The method I used for writing this article was identical to what I used to write Ring-tailed Lemur, although there are far fewer sources discussing Ruffed lemurs vs. Ring-tailed Lemurs (the most well-known and studied species). –Visionholder (talk) 09:16, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The density of references is excessive. As a general rule, the lead should rarely contain refs - its sentences should be expanded in the body and that is where the refs go. Regarding the body, I understand that giving several refs is good if the reader can't access some of them, but not to overdo. Just an example, in subsection "Anatomy and physiology" we see refs 5,6,12 and then after a short sentence again 5,6,12. I would just delete those refs at that first occurrence, and check the rest of the article for over-referencing (e.g. repeating ref. 12 at the end of "Threats in the wild"). Materialscientist (talk) 07:43, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for the clarrification. This should be fixed now. Please review at your earliest convenience. –Visionholder (talk) 16:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Done; thanks. Images need alt text as per WP:ALT. This includes the two images in the infobox. Eubulides (talk) 06:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - Yay! VH is back. I've been waiting for this article to pop up.
  • Monkeyland Primate Sanctuary - When you mention this, it's the only organization not linked, perhaps you could provide its location or something just to tell about it?
    • Temporarily provided the location, but seriously thinking about creating a Wiki page for it within the coming week.
  • No mammalian fossil record exists in Madagascar until recent times.' - in should either be for, or this sentence should be rewritten.
    • Fixed.
  • ...that had once spread throughout Laurasia and Africa during the Eocene epoch.[7] - been spread
    • Fixed.
  • down to anatomy: As with all lemurs, the ruffed lemur has special adaptations for grooming, including a toilet-claw on its second toe and a toothcomb. - cite?
    • Fixed.
  • Down to breeding: During the season when females practice infant stashing, males effectively lighten the reproductive burden of up to several mothers by guarding, huddling, grooming, travelling, playing and feeding with the young - playing with and feeding the young
    • Fixed.
  • Socially, they begin regularly exchanging contact calls with their mother at 3 weeks,[5] and select mother as their play partner 75–80% of the time during the first 3 months.[13] - rm "regularly"
    • Fixed.
  • I see contractions... might want to just separate them, for professionalism's sake. Ignore this nitpick if you choose. :)
    • Could you please elaborate? Maybe I'm missing it.
      • Nevermind... I read it as "contradictions", not "contractions". Anyway, it has been fixed. Two instances were found and the contractions were removed. –Visionholder (talk) 18:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So support from a quick, but detailed, read-over. Excellent work. ceranthor 13:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the copyedit! I greatly appreciate it. –Visionholder (talk) 16:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'll read in more detail later, but I don't like the taxonomic classification section, which basically consists of a bullet list. I would prefer this to be text, perhaps supported by a cladogram. As it stands, it looks amateurish (yes, I know we are all amateurs) and give little opportunity to assess the prose. Also, can we have some etymology for the genus and species' scientific names? See Willie Wagtail as an FA example Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to the classification section, I will see what I can do this evening. As it stands now, it is no different than what I did for the FA Ring-tailed Lemur. Also, most of the articles I have seen tend to use bullet lists for genus and species pages, while I usually see cladograms for higher classifications, such as class, order, family, etc. This can be done, but it would be nice if we could set a standard. In terms of text, I'm sure I can expand upon it. However, much of the detail about its classification is already under the Changes in taxonomy section. Maybe they should be merged? (Personally, I oppose this.)
As for an etymology section, I have searched every online and offline source I have access to, and I cannot find the root of "Varecia". Although I do know the etymology of rubra (red) and variegata (variegated - streaked, spotted, or otherwise marked with a variety of color; very colorful), I was reserving that information for the species pages... for when I get around to re-writing them. Your thoughts? –Visionholder (talk) 16:03, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, fair enough on Varecia - I can't find a root either. Cladograms not a big deal. I suppose coming from the bird project I have different expectations/assumptions about taxonomy sections, but I still think some text in the relevant section would be good. I'll comment on the article as a whole when I get time for a proper read. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:57, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've tweaked the lead a bit, mainly to avoid repetition, please check it's OK. Also have a look to see if all the "known to" are necessary Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:10, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Changes in taxonomy" more tweaks please check for unneeded padding words, esp "however". I'm happy with the content of this article, the prose just needs a careful check for repetition, padding, grammatical infelicities and the like. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tweaks looked good and were much appreciated. Use of "known to" eliminated. Usage of "however" greatly reduced. I may need help eliminating them completely. Lastly, the Taxonomic classification has been expanded. Please read over and condense or expand as needed. –Visionholder (talk) 00:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Well written and very comprehensive. Didn't find any spelling or grammar errors or MOS issues, although I admit I am not the best at finding those. Rlendog (talk) 01:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further comments Sorry to keep nibbling away at this, I only started this review because I've just taken Ruff through FAC, and we need more collared animals at FA (:
    • I encourage you to do a thorough review. You are doing your job, and you should be commended for it. As for collared animals, are you aiming for a featured topic? If so, once I complete the Lemur re-write that I'm working on (which may take a month or more), I will do you a favor and try to finish polishing up the Collared Brown Lemur article that I recently re-wrote. –Visionholder (talk) 14:48, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • final ce. Please check and revert anything you don't like
  • Copyedit looked very good. Only found one minor typo and fixed.
  • I can't stop! spelled out numbers less than ten and removed repetition
  • Thumbs-up on the edit. Good fix!
  • 16–43 ha needs imperial conversion.
  • Fixed.
  • Ruft occurs twice. Is this a real word or a typo for "ruff"? If the former, can we have a wikilink, wicktionary link, or gloss - I've never heard of this word, and more to the point, it's not in my excellent Chambers Dictionary?
  • It appears to have been a typo on my behalf. Fixed.
  • Cough, Grumble, Squeak, and Squeal - should these be capitalised in the text? Fine if you think they should, just checking that it's a conscious decision.
  • You're right. All other named vocalizations in the section are not capitalised if mentioned in the text (unless they start a sentence). Fixed.
  • (B1ab(iii,v)) What means this?
  • This is the criteria (code) used by the IUCN to classify the species as Critically Endangered. Those individually who are very familiar with the Red List would find this information useful... but for the general public, it should probably be omitted. (The code would take a small paragraph to explain. And in a way, it is explained in the article.) I will wait for your feedback before I delete it. –Visionholder (talk) 14:48, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • My feeling is that this, and the previous similar should be omitted as they are effectively meaningless for most readers, but that's your call.
  • Classification criteria removed. It's available in the references anyway.
  • 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) delusions of accuracy here, methinks. Unless you assure me that the measurement is exact to within 30 yds, I'd prefer 1 km (0.6 mi) or 1 km (1,000 yds)
  • Sigfig added to convert template. Fixed.
  • I agree with Materialscientist's comment on overreferencing. I would have no or few refs in the lead, and I wouldn't repeat refs within a paragraph unless either there is another ref in between, or there is a particularly contentious item that needs its own ref to void challenges
  • I will definitely clean up the lead, but I have historically over-cited the text because I have received feedback that all claims need to be cited immediately, not further down in the text (after additional claims have been made from the same ref source). I agree with you that refs shouldn't be repeated unless another ref is in between. Anyway, I'm going to work on this now. I will report back when completed and ready for a spot-check. –
  • References have been thinned out. Please review. If further clean-up is needed or references need to be restored, either make the changes or post specific details here. –Visionholder (talk) 16:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I expect this to be the last set of comments before I support, Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:30, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've added responses to two of the items above Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fixes complete. Please review at your earliest convenience. –Visionholder (talk) 16:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Media review with one concern:

  • I had always based my derivative maps off these other maps in good faith. I can't speak for the image creator's sources, but the rivers in File:Madagascar rivers.svg seem to match up with the rivers labeled on the map in "Lemurs of Madagascar and the Comoros, The IUCN Red Book Data", 1990 (pg. 24, figure 4). What's the best course of action here? I could recreate File:Madagascar rivers.svg based on my source. Ultimately, that range map will be replaced by an image I'll create derived from File:Madagascar_range_map_template.svg... which is currently derived from one or more of the files in question. I never realized things had to be this carefully documented. Should we just delete the range map? –Visionholder (talk) 05:49, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have done both requests. Upon close inspection, the rivers from the book closely matched those on File:Madagascar rivers.svg, but there were a few small differences, all of which were noted when I included the source. Personally, I consider these differences acceptible given the detailed accuracy (names, locations, and shapes) of the matching rivers and given the caption of the figure in the book: "Map of some of Madagascar's major rivers, including those mentioned in the text." I hope this is acceptible. Given how poor explorered and understood that remote island is, this may be the best we can get at this time. –Visionholder (talk) 14:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • the audio files state they are from Joseph M. Macedonia; should we add his credentials there? Furthermore, is there any information on where these sounds recorded?
  • I have uploaded dozens of audio files from Joseph Macedonia and fellow researcher Chris Mercer. Again, I never realized I had to go into such detail. How exactly do I document his credentials on each file? Is there a standard for doing so? As for the location of the recording, it is most likely that they were all recorded at the Duke Lemur Center, but that would be easy to confirm via email. Unfortunately, it would take hours to update on each audio file. –Visionholder (talk) 05:49, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The credentials is just a suggestion. One could do a Joseph M. Macedonia, or "Joseph M. Macedonia, Department of Biological Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA[2]" in each file. Stating where the sounds were recorded is for clarity. Jappalang (talk) 06:21, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I will look into this. I would prefer to point at something other than a web front to a journal article on a pay site. Unfortunately, I don't think Joseph M. Macedonia is on a tenure track, meaning that he moves around a lot. (He's no longer at Duke, and has moved several times since then, if I remember correctly.) If I can think of a good way to reference his credentials, I will do so. I will also look into documenting existing and newly uploaded sound files with their recording locations. Please be patient. –Visionholder (talk) 14:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not to worry, this is nothing opposable; I just think it will help the article and the project if the sources of these sound files are given in more detail. Take your time (after the conclusion of the FAC even). Jappalang (talk) 22:21, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Licensing of audio files check out fine. Other than concern over the map above, Images are appropriately licensed. Jappalang (talk) 05:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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