Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cat/archive1

Cat

In the past this article has had some edit wars, likely because everyone wants a picture of their cat somewhere on Wikipedia, but those have been resolved. This article is very detailed, covers every aspect, goes into the history of cats, and has plenty of inline citations and references. Toothpaste 00:23, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

• Neutral a good resource and an interesting read but the tone in some areas are not encyclopedic. Instances: "Virtually all...", "cats are very clean", "Indoor cats will also benefit from", "Cats enjoy many plants", "Cats are said to be 'the perfect carnivores'" Who said it? A reference needed. The diet, social and hygiene sections can do with some tweaking. Will support only after changes are made. Q: Does cats urine glow in the dark? =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:21, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • I fixed the parts your first two quote reference, but I didn't write it, and I don't have reference material, so I can't say who said it. Having a cat, I could say that cat urine doesn't glow in the dark, if you're willing to accept my original research as an answer. Thanks for the commentary. Toothpaste 10:37, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
    • 1) I'm still not happy with the "perfect carnivores" claim. See WP:AWT. From what I've seen on Animal Planet there are many animals who can also dispute this claim. 2) "It should be cleaned daily and changed often (depending on the type of litter—clumping litter stays cleaner longer). A litterbox is recommended for indoor-outdoor cats as well." This reads more like a guide for keeping cats. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:10, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. I found some of the parts relating to cat behaviour to be questionable. As I understand it the best interpretation of purring is that it is connected to calmness: a cat that is calm will purr automatically, but a cat that needs to make itself calmer (eg if it has been injured) will make itself purr to calm itself down, slow down its heart rate etc. This isn't mentioned in the article. Also cat signals through displaying its tail are not mentioned: tail straight up to indicate interest and friendliness, tail curled to indicate concern and questioning, tail wagging to indicate frustration and anger, tail down to indicate defensiveness. And nothing about the cat's continuing belief that to really make friends, humans need to smell their cat's rear end, and continuing bemusement when even the friendliest human declines the offer. David | Talk 11:18, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. This is an interesting nomination in that nearly everyone believes themselves to be an "expert" by virtue of having loving relationships with their cats. That compells the authors to meet a higher standard than is required for other featured articles; similarly to a highly controversial topic (GNAA comes to mind), every claim must be stated in careful NPOV language and clearly referenced to a demonstrably authoritative source. Otherwise, loads of people will object to any old thing, or point out tidbits to add. Whether or not this is "fair", it is what must be done for this article to pass this FAC nomination, and rightly so. As for myself, I'm no "expert" (cats make me sneeze!), so I'll count myself out of this one and watch from the sidelines. Bantman 18:05, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
• Neutral. Doesn't mention that they taste good. --SPUI (talk) 02:49, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

• Comments:
  • Things that in my opinion need inline links to references:
    • "the oldest-known cat lived to age 36"
    • "There are 32 muscles in each ear and the cat can move each ear independently."
    • "Humans and cats have a similar range of hearing"
    • "Cats can judge within three inches the location of a sound being made one yard away."
    • "A domestic cat's sense of smell is about 14 times stronger than a human's."
  • Calico and Tortoiseshell is listed as a variety but the former is a redirect to the latter.
  • "...Some environmentalists claim" - what enviromentalists?
  • —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 04:27:50, 2005-08-06 (UTC)
    • Unless these are actually controversial statements without consensus among biologists, only the "some environmentalists claim"-passage needs a specific reference. Wikipedia:Verifiability is about making sure we can support our claims with decent literature lists, not to pepper our article with an excess of footnotes. We have a quite serious over-usage of footnotes in a lot of our FAC's. / Peter ^Isotalo 13:42, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm not much of a fan of footnotes myself, but here I have to agree with Sig - these are facts that could reasonably be questioned or disputed by a good-faith reader of the article; therefore they should be footnoted. - Bantman 18:20, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
        • How can one reasonable question any one of the facts except the weasel wording "some environmentalists"? All of the examples appear to be perfectly straightforward statements of physical facts, the kind than can even be proven beyond any reasonable doubt with practical experiments. If biologists are not disputing any of these facts, then there is no need to use footnotes just because people might be too lazy to actually reference the sources themselves. Footnotes can be very disruptive to a text either by distracting the reader or making it seem more academic than it actually is. They are not intended to state the obvious; that's what we do in the actual text, which is then scrutinized in the FAC process and approved by community consensus. Even if I personally don't know if these specific facts are true or not, I consider it completely unreasonable to question them merely on the basis of my own ignorance. / Peter ^Isotalo 16:16, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
• Support - Great article! Very thorough. --K1vsr (talk) 20:03, August 9, 2005 (UTC)