Talk:Columbian ground squirrel/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Wilhelmina Will (talk · contribs) 02:22, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Well-written:

(a) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct

(b) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation

Verifiable with no original research:

(a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline

(b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose)

(c) it contains no original research

Broad in its coverage:

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic

(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Looking at the revision history, the article has not been the subject of any disruptive editing for at least four years. One hand on the mouse, one hand on the keyboard... and the feet can do the rest! Hee-hee! (talk) 17:05, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

The article is very well-illustrated with informative images, all of which are validly licensed, and none of which infringe on fair use laws. One hand on the mouse, one hand on the keyboard... and the feet can do the rest! Hee-hee! (talk) 17:09, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

(a) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content

(b) media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions

Second opinion request

I'm concerned about a few features of this article at present.

• There are a couple of hidden messages at points in the text which seem to request further work on certain aspects of the content. Ex.: The hidden message above paragraph 2 of "Description". It is unclear to me whether this is left over from an earlier peer review, and has been dealt with prior to the GA nomination or not.
• I'm a bit uncertain about some of the sentence flow, namely in the "Description" section, although I do not see anything blatantly wrong about it. Reading the text just leaves me with the notion that it could flow more smoothly.

In any case, I'm not ruling out the possibility that my subconscious has decided to invent issues where there aren't any required, and thereby for the sake of this review's integrity I would appreciate a second reviewer's opinion, if anyone is willing. "Carry me down, carry me down; carry me down into the wiki!" (talk) 22:53, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, please. I was going to ask for a second reviewer, but mostly because this GA has been open nearly a month without any constructive feedback. I was waiting until another of my projects gets through FAC to ask for the review (or to have this one fail so I can open it again). The "hidden" notes are from me, to myself. (If you look at the diffs, I have written almost the entire article). I have other ways in which the article will be improved prior to FA submission and an open to constructive input from a different reviewer. Again, it may be a while because I am caught up with an article at FA, so maybe just fail this article for now... --Gaff (talk) 02:33, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
• Second opinion - I'll have a look soon. The first thing that comes to mind, which is puzzling me a bit, is why do we need a huge cladogram when only the part about the interrelationships within the genus Urocitellus are relevant here? The relationships between different genera belongs in genus and family articles, not here. FunkMonk (talk) 16:29, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Seeing as this is dragging on with no end result, I think the kindest thing I can do at this point is fail the current nomination and leave the article open to renomination. I apologize to the nominator; the idea of doing this has been a source of dread for me, in most part, but leaving the nomination in this limbo simply isn't fair. "Carry me down, carry me down; carry me down into the wiki!" (talk) 22:32, 15 April 2015 (UTC)