Talk:Labrador Retriever/GA1

Note: Archived at Talk:Labrador_Retriever/Archive_2#GA_Review, see also original thread, 17:57, 27 September 2007.

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GA Review

This article is well organized, and overall in very good shape. There's a couple of major gaps in referencing that really need to be taken care of prior to GA status; notably:

• The 'citation needed' tag in the 'inherited disorders' section.
• The average weight provided in the 'overview' needs a source (specific numbers).
• 'Show standards' information (if they're standards for a show, it should be easy to find the standards published with the AKC or other organization).
• The text under 'Temperament and activities' is scarcely referenced.
• 'Obesity' subsection.

The reference formatting should be fixed. Inline citations should not just include a link, but also full citation information; author (if applicable), title, where it was published, date of publication, date of retrieval (if it's available as a web link). It's also unnecessary to actually include the text of the reference in quotes in each listing; let people click on the links and just tell us where you got it from. For more information on reference formatting, go to WP:CITE.

The sentence "Because of this it is good practice that Labradors are microchipped," is suggesting doing something that some owners might consider controversial, which is a violation of WP:NPOV.

The images all look good. The image under 'color' is very small, and hard to see. It could be increased in size a bit. The image tag of President Clinton & Buddy is missing the ARC identifier in the National Archives.

The article needs a good copyedit, to fix a couple of minor grammatical errors in the language; particularly in the earlier parts of the article.

Other than these minor issues, the article looks great! I'll put this on hold at WP:GAC until these issues are fixed. Cheers! Dr. Cash 02:50, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixing these. Comments to date:

1. Dysplasia affects larger dogs more, is now cited.
2. Weight now fixed and cited.
3. Show standards updated, rechecked, and cited.
4. Unfamiliar with NARA or ARC ID's, hence can't find original in the archives. Help needed.
5. Specific copyedit input needed "general copyedit" isn't specific enough.
6. Disagree that microchipping is evidenced as controversial, or at least in this breed. It seems widely supported by dog associations as a way to ensure dogs are not lost, impounded and killed but can be reunited with their owners. There is no evidence of a controversy at the main Microchip implant (animal) article, indeed they are legally required in some locations. Multiple citing, and wording has also been improved to address potential NPOV issues.
7. Two sections sighnificantly changed: 1/ History has been updated, more solid but unsure if it's best structured. Re-review of section requested. Also 2/ new section, "popularity".
8. Cites have text included specifically since the main text is via precis in many cases, hence to allow reader to see actual words used. If it's not actively in serious contravention of MOS, can it stand? Thanks.

Obseity had cited removed - to fix. Likewise temperament. Cite templates also to be added. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The article, as it stands, is in great shape. A few little things remain prior to GA, but overall, a big improvement. I made a few minor changes to the grammar and reference formatting. With regard to the quotes within references, while there's nothing in wikipedia's manual of style expressly forbidding it, it's generally a bit unorthodox and unnecessary to do so, in the wiki as well as in print. Generally, it's only necessary to include the information required to find the article that you are citing information from -- beyond that, there's these large buildings in many cities called "libraries", where people can go to actually read material and references. Including a link to the reference makes the process of physically going to the library often unnecessary, so that's good. Plus, if a link is available, just click on the link to read the full info, not just a quote -- including the quote also tends to increase the page size on the wiki article for downloading, too.

The history section looks good. The part about labradors being mostly found in cities like Moscow & Riga seems to be somewhat Russia-centric, and somewhat contradicts later data indicating that the UK & US have the largest labrador registrations; I can't imagine that large a shift in the labrador population between 1980 & the present day? I am also not sure of the validity of the statement regarding Tatiana Dimitriu? Who is she? Is she an expert on labradors? Her name is not mentioned in the corresponding reference #13, so where did this come from?

The other major issue is the new 'popularity and numbers' section, which to me, seems to be listing and stating some rather trivial and subjective information, mainly in a list form. So it looks kind of like a trivia section in disguise. While the popularity is cited, it seems like very trivial and subjective information. Specifically, the source for 'most popular dog in the world' only goes to a very sketchy source on dogbreedz.com (while I'm not challenging dogbreedz.com, it is not clear how that site came across this specific information -- was it their survey? someone else's? did they look at and compare kennel registries?), dating back to 1991. However, the demographics information and table is interesting and notable. I wonder if the section could be improved by (a) rewriting the bulleted list as prose; (b) changing the title of the section to 'demographics'; or possibly (c) moving the whole section to near the end of the article, as it doesn't seem quite as important as some of the sections that follow it?

These are the only real major issues that remain. Other than that, the article is very close to GA,... Cheers! Dr. Cash 06:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The article looks good now, and meets the GA criteria. The 'demography' section still isn't perfect, but I think it's better if we keep the section simply named 'demography' instead of naming it 'popularity and demography' (adding the popularity name in there focuses too much on a more subject criteria here). Cheers! Dr. Cash 17:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)