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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rufous-crowned Sparrow/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 SandyGeorgia 23:50, 18 April 2009 [1].

Rufous-crowned Sparrow edit

Nominator(s): Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 04:29, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

After a long absence, I’ve decided to nominate another bird article for FA status- my namesake, the Rufous-crowned Sparrow. I believe that this article meets the criteria and covers all researched aspects of this fairly random bird quite well. Thanks to Philcha for giving the article a great and thorough GA review and to Jimfbleak, Casliber, and Shyamal for handling most of the GA review when I was called away for real life issues. Thanks. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 04:29, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • [[American sparrow|sparrow]]. Why not have the more accurate American Sparrow unpiped
  • | subdivision = (in taxobox). Personally, I'd just put "see text", but if you keep the list better as A. r. australis etc
  • rufous in color - isn't in color redundant?
  • second para starts in singular then drifts to plural
  • Oh dear, you have both citation and cite style references, can't do that. Howell and Webb needs changing to cite book
  • Journal refs have variations in the degree of capitalisation compare refs 17 &18 in the article titles, prefer a standard style with minimum capitalisation jimfbleak (talk) 06:01, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • thrives in the open areas that result from an area being burned. repeats "area" - what about thrives in the open areas created by burning. or thrives in open areas cleared by burning."? jimfbleak (talk) 05:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good call. Fixed. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 11:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think that this article is essentially well written, but I'll wait until Guettarda's very reasonable issues are addressed before offering what can only be moral support given my involvement in the article jimfbleak (talk) 07:37, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
All fixed. Whith 11, I looked at it and decided it is closest to a journal, so switched the ref. Thank you. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 11:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone through and eliminated the empty parameters. I didn't find any other logical punctuation mistakes though. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 22:33, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tech. Review
Disambiged. Thank you for running this check. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 11:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Sorry that this is so long and nit-picky...I like the article, I think you've done a good job.

Infobox

  • Image captions should, in general, be understandable without direct reference to the text; thus, Aimophila ruficeps eremoeca, not A. r. eremoeca.
  • A reference is provided for one synonym (Peucaea ruficeps), but not for the other (Ammodromus ruficeps). Is there some reason for this? Also, since Ammodromus ruficeps appears to be the basionym (do they use that term for animals?) why is Peucaea ruficeps listed first? Using priority or alphabetical order to determine the sequence would make sense to me, but not "reverse" priority or alpha order.

Lead:

  • The final sentence of the lead ("Although the species is considered to be of Least Concern...")
    • "Although the species...some subspecies" repeats the word "species" too often. The word "species" also appears at the end of the previous sentence ("a range of mammal and reptile species"), where it's actually a little superfluous ("mammals and reptiles" is the object of the sentence, not "species"). It would read better if the word (sub)species wasn't repeated so often in so short a space.
    • "Least Concern" is an IUCN category, and should at the very least be linked. Ideally, I think, it should be translated into plain English (and linked).
    • The sentence is a "some this, some disagree" kind of statement, but there's no sense of who it is who gets the make the pronouncement that's being disagreed with by some. Rather than "is considered", which sounds like a statement of fact, "has been classified" might be more appropriate, since it captures the fact that LC is a conclusion based on some criteria, and it may validly be questioned.

Taxonomy:

  • First sentence: "which consists of the American sparrows and Eurasian buntings"; "consists of" suggests that these are two distinct groups. Are they really, or are American sparrows and Eurasian buntings just different names applied to the same group? (If the latter, then I would recommend "which consists of, the American sparrows and Eurasian buntings").
  • Although all are emberizids, the genera in the two groups are distinct, and each grouping has its own article jimfbleak (talk) 07:41, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although Ammodromus ruficeps is explained, Peucaea ruficeps is not. Nor, for that matter, is there any explanation of why it was transferred to Aimophila, nor by whom.

Subspecies

  • Twelve subspecies, but "up to eighteen". I'm immediately curious about the other six. What are they? (Obviously this isn't a big deal, but for completeness they could be mentioned as well). Also the reference that is used to support this statement (and quite a few others throughout the article) doesn't have this info (or really much info at all). I'm guessing the target page has been changed; the link should either be updated or removed, IMO.
The source website is weird in that all of the pages have the same address. In the column on the left, there is a button for Taxonomy that contains the source's list of eighteen subspecies. Is there a way to direct the viewer directly to that subpage? Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 02:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I see. Clicking on the link and selecting "open link in a new tab" (or whatever the IE equivalent is) usually works in a case like that. And, as it turns out, the source for the taxonomy is ITIS. Guettarda (talk) 03:36, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • A. r. canescens - same issues as the lead; "species...subspecies" feels clumsy, and Least Concern" isn't explained or linked.
  • A. r. obscura - "and formerly Santa Catalina" or "and formerly on Santa Catalina"? (Probably just a personal quirk, but the latter feels better; feel free to ignore this.)
  • A. r. obscura - is post-1940s really "recent"? (I realise it is in some contexts, but "seems to have recently colonized Anacapa Island.[7] No records exist of them before 1940.[10]" could easily be re-phrased as something like "seems to have recently colonized Anacapa Island.[7] No records exist of them before after 1940.[10]" (although it may be valuable to preserve the basis for this conclusion - the lack of records).
  • A. r. sanctorum - "However, t[T]his subspecies is now believed to be extinct". The "however" doesn't seem to belong, and the "now" would only be applicable if Van Rossem believed he was describing a living species, but it's now believed to have been extinct at the time.
  • A. r. boucardi - there's a sudden change in style from "was decribed by... It is found" (used in the second sentence of all the previous sections) to "described by,...is found". Personally I prefer the latter wording, and I would prefer a less repetitive structure, but it feels inconsistent to change at this point. (I also can't think of a way to be less repetitive and be consistent.) A. r. australis adds a third phrasing structure.
Do you think it would work better if I rotated the three styles and ignored consistency? Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 02:33, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, I don't know. That might work. As would a single consistent (but repetitive) format. Guettarda (talk) 03:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Description

  • This section uses Imperial units, as does the "Distribution" section, but the "Ecology" section uses SI
  • {{Convert}} is used here, but not elsewhere (not a big deal, but why not be consistent?) Also there's a parameter "..." used, which I don't think should be there - I think it's just used in the template documentation to suggest that there are other possible parameters you can add.
  • Fifth sentence "or area just above the eye" - I'm glad to see the terminology explained, but given the flow of the sentence (it's immediately followed by the word "are"), it might flow better as "The face and supercilium (the area above the eye) are gray..."
  • Sixth sentence: "This sparrow also has a crown..." - "has a crown" reads like a literal crown. Simply saying "The [[Crown (anatomy)|crown]] ranges from rufous to chestnut" might be less confusing. I also think that the "in coloration" is unnecessary here. "Coloration" is just jargon for "colo(u)r", and given the context, it should be obvious that you're talking about chestnut the colour, not chestnut the nut/tree/wood.

Distribution and habitat

  • It might be helpful it concepts like "migratory" and "territoriality" were linked.

Ecology and behavior

  • Might it be helpful to link "habitat"?
  • While "rodent run" is explained, "broken wing" and "tumbling off the bush" are not. Explaining one while ignoring the other two makes the section seems a tad imbalanced. In addition, do we have articles that explain these displays? If so, they should be linked to. If not...why not?!! :)

Diet

  • The final paragraph is (a) only one sentence long, and (b) distractingly passive-voiced.
Not sure how to fix this one. Not much is known on the sparrow's drinking habits, so the paragraph is stuck at one sentence. Per the passive voice, this is based solely on limitated observations, which make be hesitant to move away from including that this is only when observed. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 03:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reproduction

  • First paragraph
    • The males sing "to attract a mate" throughout the mating season: is "mating season" distinct from breeding season? (Off-topic rant: Why does mating season redirect to estrous cycle?)
I don't believe so, and even if it is, I don't think that there is an established, universal dividing mark. And I don't know why mating season would redirect there instead of the breeding season article. It is a bit strange. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 19:21, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The final sentence about monogamy seems out of place, tacked on to the end of a section about male-male interactions
  • Second para: I would recommend linking breeding season, but the target article kinda sucks.
  • Third para:
    • link "incubation" to avian incubation?
    • Fourth sentence: "once" the young leave the nest, or "when" the young leave the nest?
    • Sixth sentence: "Males guard their territories year-round" - this seems out of place here. Maybe in the first para?
  • Fourth para: single sentence, bit short for a stand-alone para

Conservation

  • The first sentence is dense and has a jargony feel. It would be vastly improved if it were translated into "friendlier" English.
  • Third sentence starts with the word "however", but actually builds upon the previous sentence, it doesn't contrast with it.
  • The para ends somewhat abruptly with "Additionally...known to have been poisoned by...warfarin".

Guettarda (talk) 15:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, thank you for taking the time with the article to do a review this comprehensive. I believe that I have addressed all of your concerns except for two- the water paragraph and why the species was switched from Ammodramus to Aimophila. With the water, I want to keep the bit about not enough research in the sentence, which I’m not sure how to do with an active sentence. For the movement between genera, I cannot find anything through the might of Google that mentions why the switch was made. As Aimophila existed when the species was described, the only thing that I can figure out was that Cassin made a mistake which a later author corrected. Again, I haven’t found anything even suggesting this. Again, thank you for examining the article and pointing out numerous means of improvement. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 20:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: This is a great article, Rufous! It doesn't feel robust, though: other articles on similar species (such as the recently-featured Tree Sparrow are about twice this size. I'm not sure it's comprehensive quite yet. The lede is still very short (just the two paragraphs). Tree Sparrow has an entire section on Relationships with humans that is barely touched upon in this article. Obviously, if there hasn't been as much research, there's no way you can expand upon what doesn't exist. Yet I get the feeling there's more to be said here. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:05, 12 April 2009 (UTC) [reply]

I'll take another look through the refs, but per a Relationship with humans section I'm pretty sure there isn't anything out there. The sparrow isn't particularly noticeable or striking to get extra attention, lives in largely unpopulated areas, isn't endangered overall, and is a New World bird and therefore is less likely to have any art depicting it commented upon. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 02:14, 12 April 2009 (UTC) [reply]
Understood. I'm going to take a deeper look at the article over the next couple of days, and offer additional observations. Overall, the article looks really good. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:43, 12 April 2009 (UTC) [reply]
As the main editor of Tree Sparrow, I'd agree with RCS - the Tree Sparrow breeds across the whole of Eurasia, is well studied, and as an urban bird in east Asia, it has been immortalised in Oriental art. The RCS has a restricted range in non-urban habitat, and is little studied. I'll see if I can find some more, just in case jimfbleak (talk) 05:35, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the double-check, Jim. I do understand that the two species may not be directly comparable. Best, Firsfron of Ronchester 05:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
this says of RCS "known only to the fortunate few" and comments on its retiring nature. There is no hint of any myth, legend or folklore that I can find, even without looking for reliable sources, and although it has attracted some research interest, it can't compare with Tree Sparrow, which is almost a standard for studying non-migratory species. There is nothing on Aimophila taxonomy to compare with Passer, RCS hasn't been introduced anywhere, and it doesn't use agricultural land. Whilst it might be foolhardy to say there is nothing else out there, I think this is probably about as comprehensive as it can get jimfbleak (talk) 09:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. My concerns above have been addressed, with an expanded lede and 5k of additional material. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional support on addressing Guettarda's concerns. I was going to oppose b/c, at just over 2000 words, this article did not seem to be possibly long enough to be comprehensive (some sections in FAs I've contributed to are longer than that). But I highly respect jimfbleak's expertise in this area and if he says there really isn't much more to say, then there isn't much more to say AFAIC. --mav (talk) 17:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image review - File:Chaparral California.jpg - The author and the uploader of this image are different, therefore we cannot be sure that the author has released the rights to the image. Could you contact the author and ask him to verify that he has indeed released the image? He can declare so on the image description page by signing a statement to that effect. Awadewit (talk) 18:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've left the author a note. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 19:04, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'm the photographer and I uploaded the picture, making it public domain. It looks like someone transferred it to Commons, thereby becoming the "uploader". Curiously, I'm not seeing anything in the deletion log -- that must have been before we retained deleted images. If you would like (since it's low-res -- 400x300) I can dig out the original high-res image and give you that instead (I was using a dialup in the early days of Wikipedia, so often uploaded low-res images). Antandrus (talk) 19:14, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Antandrus personally uploaded the file in a larger size at File:Chaparral1.jpg, which I've replaced in the article. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 19:36, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Image issue resolved. All other images have adequate descriptions and verifiable licenses. Awadewit (talk) 01:10, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Still needs some work. Sasata (talk) 02:15, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Conditional Support: full support after the addition of hot-off-the-press phylogenetic analysis :) Sasata (talk) 06:33, 13 April 2009 (UTC) Has everything I want to see, and it's nice to have the extra descriptions in the subspecies section. Sasata (talk) 02:37, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lede: link rufous, raptors (I thought they went extinct millions of years ago?),
  • "Nests ... typically hold two to five eggs." It's unclear to me if this is due to limitations of the volume of the cup (what the sentence implies), or if 2–5 eggs is the typical brood size.
  • Taxonomy: "Birds in the genus Aimophila tend to be medium-sized" as a non-bird enthusiast this size descriptor means nothing to me, could you give a numerical range instead? (same thing with long bills and tails next sentence) Later, the description section says the RCS is "a smallish sparrow".
Smallish is a direct quote from Byers and seems to refer to the RcS in relationship to the other members of its genus. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 04:05, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • link scrubland
  • It's not mentioned that the genus name is Greek
  • There's a large section listing all of the known subspecies and who described them in that year and what locale, but there's no indication of what characteristics make them unique (isn't that the most important?).
Subspecies descriptions are extremely important; alas, I am unable to find a description of each subspecies anywhere, as the resources just note range and author. The few subspecies I have found specific descriptions for are vague, saying things like "darker than the subspecies to the north and lighter than the subspecies to the south". Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 03:12, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. The DaCosta paper might have some more info about the subspecies that could be fit in somewhere in that section. Sasata (talk) 06:33, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Description: what's a wingbar?
  • There's an errant quote mark
  • "The bill is yellow and conical shaped." It is either cone-shaped or conical, but not the redundant "conical shaped"
  • what was "scrubland" in the taxonomy section is "shrubland" here
  • Conservation: "range of about 463,323 square miles (1,200,001.0 km2)," Surely there has to be a way to remove the 1.0 with the convert template?
  • Perhaps I missed it somewhere, but is the lifespan mentioned?
  • Some very recent phylogenetic analysis has been performed on the Aimophila genus[1] and this data should be mentioned here.
I'd love to read the article, but am unable to find it on the internet beyond an abstract. I'll leave a note on the WT:Bird page to see if anyone gets the Journal of Avian Biology. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 04:05, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find the double periods at the end of many of the references annoying. As far as I understand it, the title doesn't implicitly have a period in it, so it shouldn't be added in the template.
  • There's inconsistent capitalization of titles throughout the "Further reading" section, under "Articles".
  • Why no ISBN for the Colins reference?
  • Parker SA & Stotz D (1977) - no page #'s
  1. ^ DaCosta JM, Spellman GM, Escalante P, Klicka J. (2009). "A molecular systematic revision of two historically problematic songbird clades: Aimophila and Pipilo". Journal of Avian Biology 40(2): 206–219.
I believe I've addressed all of your comments except for the three with detailed notes above. Thank you for reviewing the article. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 04:05, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments A very good effort, and nearly there, I'd say. I'm wondering about a couple of things:

  • This sentence, from the description section, seems a bit silly (when you look at the conversions): It ranges from 15 to 23 grams (1.0 to 1.0 oz) in weight and averages about 19 grams (1.0 oz). Do all the weights really translate to 1.0 oz.? If so, it needs to be reorganized somehow.
  • The writing in the subspecies section is very repetitious, and the style is very basic; each section is pretty much a copy of
A. r. rupicola was described by Van Rossem in 1946.[10] It is found in the mountains of southwestern Arizona.
How about varying some: A. r. rupicola, described by Van Rossem in 1946,[10] is found in the mountains of southwestern Arizona.[11]

MeegsC | Talk 11:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

LOL. That is what I get for trusting a citation template:) Thanks for pointing it out, though I had to go to manually typing it out to make it work. I put three(!) distinct styles in the subspecies subsection as well, and descriptions are now on their way. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 12:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick Break Hello. I'm leaving for a 36 hour trip in a few minutes. I believe all issues above are addressed except for the new Aimophila paper, which Sabine's Sunbird has a copy of and I'll try to get when I get back. Thank you. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 13:27, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've got the article and will try to put the information in later tonight as well as fatten out the lede. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 23:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK, the paper has now been integrated into the article and the lede has been beefed up a bit. I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) that all issues raised have now been addressed. Thanks. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 21:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"A 2008 study of the genus Aimophila divided it into four genera..." I think it should be mentioned somewhere that it's phylogenetic analysis, and did it really divide the genus into genera? Sasata (talk) 21:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll add that, and the paper recommended splitting the genus into four genera, though one was lumped into a seperate, pre-existing genus. Obviously, the list-keepers haven't had a chance to evaluate and actually accept the split due to it coming out this year, but the paper recommended it. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 01:49, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moral Support. Because of my involvement in this article I have an obvious COI, and I don't expect my vote to carry any weight. However, the article is at the stage now where I would support if I were not compromised. jimfbleak (talk) 15:31, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Support. (moral or otherwise) Like Jim, have been involved and have a COI as a WP:Birds member, and I also agree with comment about richness (or otherwise) of sources c/w Tree Sparrow from Jim etc. I reckon it is over the line. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:02, 15 April 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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