Talk:Réunion ibis/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 18:15, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

A quick glance through suggests that this is a solid article; I've no doubt that promotion is on the cards. A few nitpicks:

• The very first paragraph is a little short.
• "This species has a relatively straight beak, and may have had difficulty flying." Tenses
• Reunion or Réunion?
• "and referred to the bird as "Solitaires"" Singular/plural?
• tract dablink
• Don't refer to subfossils as fossils- they're different enough that this is misleading.
• I believe "raphinae" should be "Raphinae"?
• "Morphological study showed its closest" It could only suggest, not show, surely?
• "Errol Fuller agrees the 17th century paintings do not depict Reunion birds, but has questioned whether the ibis fossils are necessarily connected to the "Solitaire" accounts. He notes that no evidence indicates the fossil ibis survived until the time Europeans reached Reunion.[14]" I think this belongs in the lead. This suggests genuine scholarly disagreement, or at least the possibility that the presented account is not the whole story.
• pectoral dablink
• Source formatting- (I don't mind this for GAC, but it'd be worth spending a few minutes to make sure that it's completely consistent before FAC.)
  • Author names are given in an inconsistent way.
  • Some book publishers have locations, others don't.
  • The Olson source needs looking at.
  • Check the capitalisation of article names- I'd recommend doing articles in sentence case.

Closing the article with the Melet quote seems very appropriate. A stunning article and one that, unless there are any other sources which may contain information, is pretty much ready for FAC now. It seems to happen all too often that editors I help out with early articles quickly overtake me in their writing ability! J Milburn (talk) 18:15, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot (also for help on all the other articles), I'll start fixing the issues soon. I'm unsure myself of what to do with Reunion/Réunion, it seems this article was moved away from former titles using "Réunion"... Perhaps I should look at what most of the sources do? I'll add Fuller's doubt in the intro, but just for the record, my impression is that he's not a scientific researcher as such, more a "populariser" in a way, so his opinion perhaps shouldn't be given as much weight as that of the many actual scientists who agree the two entities are one. His sentiments were dismissed as "hope" in the existence of a Dodo-like bird on Reunion in a Cheke & Hume publication, by the way... There isn't much more in the sources I have about this bird, and I think this is one of the only articles in existence that synthesises so much info about the bird into one text. FunkMonk (talk) 18:26, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you could go with Réunion for the island, and whatever is most common in the sources for the name of the bird? Don't feel pressurised into adding the nugget to the lead if Fuller is not so respected in the field- it may even be worth adding the opinion of Cheke/Hume after you mention Fuller's. J Milburn (talk) 19:35, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think he isn't respected (he recently co-authored a book with David Attenborough[1]), it's just that he doesn't conduct original research, his writings are more like historical overviews. But I'll do what you suggested, in both cases. FunkMonk (talk) 19:40, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Most issues should be fixed now. I've not written "subfossil" in cases were fossils in general are meant, for example that only fossil remains would confirm the presence of a Dodo, since the type of fossil is irrelevant to what it would prove. I'm not sure howto lengthen the first paragraph. What would you expect from such? FunkMonk (talk) 19:15, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'm happy to promote now. In terms of the first paragraph, perhaps an indication of when it went extinct and why, and its closest living relative. I'd imagine that is the first information someone would want to know about a creature of this sort. Perhaps something to reconsider if you come to nominate this for featured status; provided there are no other sources worth looking through, I'd honestly say that this was one close- another great article. J Milburn (talk) 10:41, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I've moved some info into the first paragraph from further down the intro. I know of two French papers that could maybe be used as well, the original 1987 description of the fossil ibis (already used as a source, though only to confirm a date), and a 2002 paper on Réunion fauna in general. The thing is, I never took French, and these papers are summarised in the other sources I've already used, so I doubt there's anything new in them. FunkMonk (talk) 11:00, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sadly not a French speaker either- Circeus is a taxonomist who works with fungi articles who is a native French speaker, he may be willing to take a look through the papers for you. I can't think of anyone else off the top of my head. J Milburn (talk) 11:47, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try to add it if/when I try to make an FA out of it. FunkMonk (talk) 14:20, 29 November 2012 (UTC)