Talk:Requiem for a Species/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: MartinPoulter (talk) 16:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

This article covers a serious academic work on a highly important topic. It's exactly the sort of thing Wikipedia needs more of and I commend Johnfos and other editors for getting it to this stage. However, I'm going to quickfail it as it's far from ready for GA status, and improvement needs extensive rewriting and additional writing.

It's particularly on the grounds of breadth that it is lacking. It's a very short article with really only three substantive third-party references. The synopsis for the book is written from the book itself. This is bad practice: it needs to be written predominantly from reviews, news coverage or other third-party sources.

The SeeAlso section is littered with books that don't seem directly related but have overlapping topics. We should be using that section for articles that will be useful for people inquiring about the book, not about the phenomenon the book describes. We already have the categories system with which to link related books.

Reference 7 seems to be original research, which is naturally unacceptable. The Times Higher is used twice in the Reception section: didn't the same reviewer name it Book of the Week as gave the quoted review? However, the reviews section in general is written in an accessible and neutral way. The Themes section has some unencyclopedic first-person language ("why we have ignored those warnings").

This is a recent book by a prominent academic. I'm sure there will be more reaction to it and coverage of it that leads to more third-party sources which can be used as a basis for the article. I very much hope the article will come back to GA review in the future. MartinPoulter (talk) 21:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing, Martin. You've said that this is "a very short article with really only three substantive third-party references". Exactly how long does an article need to be before it can be considered for GA? And how many third-party references does an article need before it can be considered for GA? It would be helpful if you could please provide a definitive answer on these points as that would guide me in the future. Johnfos (talk) 00:27, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't have exact numbers in mind and I don't believe in definitive answers for these things; it's just that the article is far from being a borderline case. An article could be GA with just a handful of independent sources, if one of those sources were a proper book-length treatment. It comes down to how much the sources say about the article's subject; whether the reader's going to feel they've had a thorough look at the different aspects of the subject. Look at the examples of B-class and GA-class articles in the assessment scale.

If a book article were twice as long as the article is now, with maybe ten third-party sources, then it would strike me a bit short for a GA (looking at the articles that do pass) but could well pass depending on how well it's written; what sort of sources they are, how it's used. The Reception section is great but, as I've said, there's an issue with the sourcing of the Themes section: that doesn't leave much actual article content.

I commend you for improving the article, and if you continue adding sources with your accessible, neutral writing style, you'll get it to GA; it's just not ripe yet. I hope this answers your question, but if not I'm happy to discuss or for you to seek other opinions. MartinPoulter (talk) 21:44, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I've looked at some FA non-fiction book articles and can see that these have a more in-depth coverage than is presented here. But when I look at GA non-fiction book articles, Requiem for a Species seems to be on a par with most of them.

The Atlas of Australian Birds is a GA that is actually shorter than this article, and it has few third party references. You've said that the Synopsis "needs to be written predominantly from reviews, news coverage or other third-party sources", yet there are many book GAs where this is not the case, see for example A Short History of Progress and Tree: A Life Story.

I still can't see why this article has been quickfailed and am unclear about which of the five quickfail criteria it actually met. It really doesn't seem much different to existing non-fiction book GAs. I'm not saying that the article is perfect, but at least it could have been put "on hold" and issues discussed and hopefully remedied. Johnfos (talk) 22:02, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I realise I was in error quickfailing it: my apologies. It should be on hold: I'll do that now. MartinPoulter (talk) 22:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Requesting second opinion: as an inexperienced reviewer, I've messed up this review so far: the article seems to me to fail criterion 4 (and that criterion only) by a wide margin, but the sample of book articles I'm familiar with could well be biased, since I edit in controversial areas. I was wrong to fail straight away and I apologise again to the nominator. For fairness' sake, and for my own education, it would be good if a more experienced reviewer would weigh in on how far the article is from GA. A Short History of Progress and Tree: A Life Story mentioned above by Johnfos, do back up his point he makes, but they also discuss their subjects at much greater breadth than this article does. They are examples of what I expect a truly broad book article to look like. MartinPoulter (talk) 23:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Martin, I appreciate that. And thank you for being willing to discuss things. I'm not trying to make a big deal out of this, but it would be good to know more about the issues being discussed here, for future reference. For example, I am still unclear about the Synopsis section. Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article says that the Synopsis should not be too long. It says "Synopsis should be between 400 and 700 words (about 600 words), but should not exceed 900 words unless there is a specific reason such as being complicated". And I know that on WP it is acceptable to write film synopses with no supporting references, and some book GAs are doing this too. So there are issues which I wish clarify to provide further guidance. Johnfos (talk) 23:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I wrote both the articles mentioned above (A Short History of Progress and Tree: A Life Story) so they are thus written in much the same format. Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article is an out-dated guideline (useful for developing an article but shouldn't be cited as a defense of anything). If I understand the question here, it is whether citations should be provided for a synopsis? My answer to that is 'no', cites to third-party sources or the primary document are not required but they could be useful. Writing a Synopsis according to what is found in reviews is fantastically difficult. Most reviewers provide a precis about what the book is about - usually from the publisher's blurb or promotional material that came with the book. But to piece together a structured review of what and how the topics are covered in the book (which so rarely happens) needs to be done using the primary source (the actual book). In Tree: A Life Story, for example, using the "Synopsis" section I not only revealed the contents of the book but also how the contents were presented. Book reviews are not peer-reviewed statements of fact; they are opinions and communicate how that one reviewer (whatever his background) interpreted the book. This is why these book-articles on WP are typically heavy on quotes (because they are mostly communicating opinions). To piece together a Synopsis from various reviews would just be stacking interpretations upon interpretations. I hope this helps.

Also, regarding this article: I think the "Author" section should be amended to say what the author was doing at the time of the book's witing/publication. So "Hamilton is professor of public ethics..." → "At the time of publication, Hamilton was professor of public ethics...". This provides us with a little better idea of context (what kind of environment the book is coming from or what made the book's author qualified on the subject). maclean (talk) 01:47, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, The Age review, an excerpt was published in Aug 2010 edition of Geographical (Vol.82,Iss.8;p.30-2). maclean (talk) 04:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Maclean, for all of that. Most helpful. Johnfos (talk) 05:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this, Maclean. I was wrong to say there was a sourcing problem. Could you also weigh in on whether it's appropriate to pass an article as GA when there's relatively little content? I'm thinking of this from the guide to reviewing: "Not every article can be a Good article. If the references to improve an article to Good article standards simply do not exist, then you should not overlook that part of the criteria." MartinPoulter (talk) 12:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Update: I've been reading a random selection of GA non-fiction book articles, selecting books I hadn't heard of so as to bias it to less notable books. I recognise that I set too high a standard when I said that a 20K article might still be too short. However, it's clear that in terms of how much information the article gives about the book, this article is at the very tail of the distribution. The articles I looked at (and maclean's articles are great examples) give the sense of informing the reader about what makes that book significant, beyond a synopsis and some reception.

Looking at the GA reassessment for the Atlas of Australian Birds, I see Wizardman raised the objection "In terms of raw information, this article feels a bit lacking." That's my feeling about this article, and in fact it's my feeling about the Atlas article as well. However, Wizardman was satisfied with the Atlas article and passed it as GA. I still feel that the Atlas article is different to this one and, in a way, more informative. Wizardman is a much more experienced reviewer and I will defer to his judgement if he contributes to this discussion.

The question of how short an article can be and still be "broad" doesn't seem to be decided by policy and I realise now that it's wrong for me to decide it unilaterally. I would be open to asking a relevant community to weigh in, such as the Books Wikiproject, or, as above, an experienced reviewer. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:57, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Small improvements to the lead that would be welcome: "Hamilton has written about climate change for 15 years" was true in 2010. This needs to be rephrased in a timeless way. You could perhaps mention his previous related books in this sentence. "[D]eny the climate change truth" is an odd phrase: "deny the truth about climate change" would seem more natural. Or even spell out that people are denying the scientific evidence about climate change. It would be okay to mention in the lead that the book was Book of the Week in the THE: it would make that bit of the lead more interesting. MartinPoulter (talk) 15:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, agree with those suggested improvements to the lead. Martin, would you consider going in and making these copyediting improvements please. In the meantime I have expanded the article based on earlier GA review suggestions here, adding more third party references and increasing the breadth of coverage. Feel free to make further improvements. Johnfos (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Great work expanding the article and adding in extra sources. It no longer feels scanty or incomplete, and it no longer feels that it would be out of place among the existing GA book articles. I've learnt my lesson about how not to fail an article. Well done: I hope you'll review other GA candidates and improve similar articles to this standard. MartinPoulter (talk) 18:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)