Talk:Rice/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: RecycledPixels (talk · contribs) 08:42, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Hello, I am RecycledPixels. I will review this article between now and a few days after the holidays. I prefer to use the GA review table, which keeps me on task of evaluating just the GA criteria without getting lost in the weeds or bringing up MOS issues that aren't part of the criteria. The table is just a personal preference, although I realize that it can make threaded comments and responses difficult. Feel free to invent your own way of responding to my comments, whether it is in the table boxes in bold, italic, or colored text, or in a section immediately following the table. Generally, I also add a section after the table of other suggestions and comments that I have. Anything I mention outside the table in such a section is a suggestion only, and is not considered part of the pass/fail criteria of GA, so feel free to respond or disregard it if I make suggestions there. I will begin the first part of the reviews shortly. I usually take the review in several steps, and not normally in order. Please don't respond or edit this GA review page until I've completed item #7, the "overall assessment" field at the end, which is my sign that I have completed my steps, the ball is in your court, and I will wait for you to respond. That way we won't be disrupting each other with edit conflicts during this process. I will also ping you to let you know. RecycledPixels (talk) 08:42, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks. I'm away from my desk but will respond as far as possible now; anything complex may have to wait a little. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:47, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap Me too. I see you're making some touch-up edits after this acceptance, and since I'm also occupied with family over the next few days, I'll wait for you to ping me that I'm good to go before I proceed further. RecycledPixels (talk) 10:22, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

RecycledPixels: Go right ahead. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:38, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Table

Since edits continue to be made to the article during the edit, this review will be addressing the state of the article at this revision, which is the state of the article after image and caption concerns had been made to date. Any further edits to the article will be addressed after the primary article authors have a chance to respond to and address this review. RecycledPixels (talk) 18:39, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	As with any article, there are plenty of basic copyediting suggestions I can make, but the GA criteria only requires writing that is clear and understandable, with correct spelling and grammar. The article easily meets that level.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	MOS:LEAD: The first sentence of the article should introduce the topic, and tell the nonspecialist reader what the subject is, and often when or where. (emphasis added, copied from MOS:FIRST). The current second sentence does a much better job of telling what the article is about, probably better then the current first sentence. The scientific naming of the plants that produce the cereal is secondary in importance in this article. As a cereal grain, domesticated rice is the most widely consumed staple food for over half of the world's human population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Where is this fact and its related citations in the body of the article? The lead is a summary of the body of the article, and should not contain information that is not discussed in greater detail in the body. It is the agricultural commodity with the third-highest worldwide production, after sugarcane and maize. Same issue. Since sizable portions of sugarcane and maize crops are used for purposes other than human consumption, rice is the most important food crop with regard to human nutrition and caloric intake, providing more than one-fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by humans. Same issue. None of these facts are repeated or cited in the body of the article. There are many varieties of rice, and culinary preferences tend to vary regionally. The Ecotypes and cultivars section of the body is where I'd expect to find an expansion and citation of how culinary preferences tend to vary regionally, but I don't see anything about culinary preferences. Rice, a monocot, is normally grown as an annual plant, and irrigated by flooding the fields while, or after, setting the seedlings.. Same issues. There is some mention of whether or not the rice fields are always kept flooded during growth, but no mention of whether the flooding occurs before, during, after the planting step, or even whether seedlings are planted vs. direct seeding. Rice cultivation is well-suited to countries and regions with low labor costs and high rainfall, as it is labor-intensive and requires ample water. No mention of this anywhere else in the article. However, rice can be grown even on a steep hill or mountain area with the use of water-controlling terrace systems. No mention of terracing systems or terrain other than a vague, mention in the ecology section of uplands vs. lowlands. MOS:LAYOUT: The number of single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized. Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheadings (per MOS:PARA). Links in the "See also" section should be relevant and limited to a reasonable number. (MOS:SEEALSO) MOS:WTW: Unsupported attributions: Some sources claim the post-harvest losses exceed 40% It was estimated in 2021 to be responsible... It is estimated that it takes about 2,500 litres.... Synonyms for said: A World Bank – FAO study claims 8% to 26%... Some sources claim the post-harvest losses exceed 40% A 2007 study claims that if these post-harvest grain losses... Farmers also claim the leaves are a natural fertilizer.... Expressions of doubt: this record was reportedly surpassed by an Indian farmer, Sumant Kumar, with 22.4 metric tons per hectare (10.0 short tons per acre) in Bihar, although this claim has been disputed by both Yuan and India's Central Rice Research Institute. Botanicals, so-called "natural pesticides".... Editorializing: it does not contain all of the essential amino acids in sufficient amounts for good health, and should be combined with other sources of protein... Just five countries—Thailand... This practice probably helps the soil retain moisture.... Relative time references: Researchers have recently reported in Nature... MOS:WAF: Not applicable. MOS:EMBED: Not applicable.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	With 167 listed sources in the article, it would not be practical to perform verifications of each and every one of them. I did, however, look at all of the references that were used in the Biology, History, and Environmental Impacts sections. What I found was not encouraging. Biology Section: It is normally an annual, but in the tropics it can survive as a perennial, producing a ratoon crop for up to 30 years. is cited with reference #4, which makes no mention of a 30-year lifespan. Rice does not thrive if waterlogged, yet it can survive and grow in paddy fields which are regularly flooded. is cited with references #6 and #7. Reference #6 makes reference to this, although I worry that the statement is being taken out of context. Reference #7 ("Warned plants hold their breath in case of flooding") makes no mention of these facts, or even rice. Rice can be grown in different environments, depending upon water availability. The usual arrangement is for lowland fields to be surrounded by bunds and flooded to a depth of a few centimetres until around a week before harvest time; this requires a large amount of water. The "alternate wetting and drying" technique, flooding the fields for around a week, then draining them for a similar period, and so on, uses less water. These sentences are cited to reference #8. The alternate wetting and drying technique described in that article differs from the process described here. Deepwater rice varieties tolerate flooding to a depth of over 50 centimetres for at least a month is attributed (in part) to reference 9 (Bhuiyan 2004). The cited page number makes no mention of this; the only mention of Deepwater rice is listing some the regions where it is grown. The other reference attached to this statement, reference 10, is a glossary definition of deepwater rice that supports the statement. History of Cultivation section: Oryza sativa rice was first domesticated in the Yangtze River basin in China 13,500 to 8,200 years ago. That sentence is supported by four(!) references, 12, 13, 14, and 15. Reference #12, "Yangtze Seen as Earliest Rice Site" does not support the sentence. It only states that of a 125 samples taken from 100 sites, the oldest samples had a median age of 11,500 years. Reference #13 is an interesting analysis of the history of rice domestication and could be used to further expand this section overall, but beyond the statement, "There is sufficient archaeobotanical evidence to state that rice was domesticated in the region of the Yangtze River valley of China", the reference does not support the assertion of the time frame. Reference #15, "Early Mixed Farming of Millet and Rice 7800 Years Ago in the Middle Yellow River Region, China" states only "Rice (Oryza sativa) has been regarded as a native crop in the Mid-Lower Yangtze River region of China..." and primarily deals with Millet and Rice farming in the Yellow River region of China. I am not yet able to access reference #14. The History of rice cultivation sub article also asserts this date range, except it uses a different reference, a reliable source that is not one of these four, that does actually support this fact. Environmental impacts section: ...and is half that of beef. is cited to reference 59 ("Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds"). The only mention of rice in that article is a graph in the sidebar that shows the greenhouse emissions of beef being represented by four boxes plus another part of a box, and the greenhouse emissions of rice being represented by two boxes plus another smidge of a box. It's probably accurate, but I think it's really a stretch to consider this the best reference to counter a challenge to the accuracy of this information, especially when the graph cites the actual study that produced the numbers used in the graph, which would probably be a WAY better source. This is a completely separate issue to the question of how the greenhouse gas emissions of beef vs. rice has anything to do with the price of tea in China, but I'll address that in a different section. Rice requires more water to produce than other grains is attributed to reference 69 (author unidentified, Virtual Water Trade). The cited page is an appendix that contains Table A1, specific water demands of primary vegetal products, estimated for 1990. Looking at the grains listed, rice is listed as 1408 cubic meters per ton. Barley is 1910 cubic meters per ton. Oats is 2374 cubic meters per ton. Pulses are 1754 cubic meters per ton. Rape and mustard seed is 1521 cubic meters per ton. Soybeans are listed at 2752 cubic meters per ton. Perhaps the addition of "some" before "other grains" would make the statement technically accurate, but that whole "water usage" paragraph is already testing the boundary of Wikipedia's neutrality policy. Other referencing issues that I have encountered in other sections while looking into different parts of this review: Cultivars exist that are adapted to deep flooding, and these are generally called "floating rice" is attributed to reference 124 (CGIAR 2005). I don't believe the source supports this statement. The largest collection of rice cultivars is at the International Rice Research Institute is attributed to reference 125 (IRRI home page). I don't believe the provided source supports this statement. Reference 80 "Knowledge Bank" is an unclear citation because the original link is a dead link and the archived link does not contain any content, only a header. There is insufficient information in the citation to re-search for whatever was being referenced; no search terms, accurate titles, or other information. Reference 88 "p. 214" identifies only a page number and a quotation. It does not identify the author, publication, date, or other information. Reference 93 "p. 214" identifies only a page number and a quotation. It does not identify the author, publication, date, or other information. Reference 94 "p. 214" identifies only a page number and a quotation. It does not identify the author, publication, date, or other information. Reference 110 "No Early Spray" is incomplete enough to make me wonder if the attached URL is even the same article. The URL links to an article with a significantly different title, but the citation does not identify the publication, authors, accurate chapter title, book title, book editors, or page numbers. Reference 125 "Home" does not identify a specific article, author, date, or publisher, and the URL only links to the home page of the IRRI.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	Reliable Sources: What makes CBWInfo a reliable source, used in reference 97 as one of three citations to support the sentence "There is also an ascomycete fungus, Cochliobolus miyabeanus, that causes brown spot disease in rice." ? Is that statement likely to be challenged to the extent that it needs three references? What makes IRRI's website a reliable source to support the statement that "The largest collection of rice cultivars is at the International Rice Research Institute"? Is reference 138 "Swamna Sub1" an independent, reliable source?
	2c. it contains no original research.	This one gets a pass, although the "half that of beef" issue raised in section 2a could have been put here instead. But it's mentioned above already.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Non-automated copyvio search: The first paragraph of the Ecology section is a word-for-word cut-and-paste from the cited source. [1] More detailed analysis of rice yields by the International Rice Research Institute forecast 20% reduction in yields in Asia per degree Celsius of temperature rise. Rice becomes sterile if exposed to temperatures above 35 °C (95 °F) for more than one hour during flowering and consequently produces no grain. is very closely paraphrased from reference 68 (Rao 2017) at [2]. Automated search (Earwig's Copyvio Detector): The yield growth rate had fallen 10–20% at some locations. The study was based on records from 227 farms in Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal, India, China, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The mechanism of this falling yield was not clear, but might involve increased respiration during warm nights, which expends energy without being able to photosynthesize. is closely paraphrased from a BBC article at reference 66, from [3]. The text was added to the article on 10 August 2010, one day after the BBC article was published.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Having grown up in a part of California with a lot of rice production, I was surprised to see no mention of the impact of burning rice straw in the environmental impacts section. There were years of debate in the state about the impacts on air quality before the state eventually banned the burning of rice fields in the 1990s. Local producers now use straw incorporation methods which introduce new issues such as disease persistence and net increased greenhouse gas production resulting from anaerobic decomposition of rice straw in soil. However, according to a 2009 paper I pulled up, in Asia, rice straw burning is still widely practiced, and 95% of the rice straw residue in the Philippines is removed by open-field burning. Similarly, there is no mention of pesticide use and overuse in the environmental impacts section. Contaminated soils and runoff water have a significant societal cost, especially in areas of low government monitoring and regulation. Comparing the article to another Wikipedia article of similar coverage, Wheat which just recently passed GA, I see significant differences between the articles in the level of coverage in basic information, such as the Description, History, Evolution, and Agronomy. The Agronomy subjects in this article seem to be awkwardly combined into the Commerce section. The GA criteria under this category is pretty basic, however, allowing simple overviews of broad topics with no requirement for being comprehensive in its coverage. The ecological aspects I mentioned above are my only objections under this section.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	I don't have concerns in this category.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	I was not expecting to find any neutrality issues in the article, but... The first paragraph of the Climate Change section makes strong suggestions that rice production is a major contributor of greenhouse gasses. It accurately states that rice production accounts for almost half of greenhouse gasses emissions from croplands, and half that of (even!) beef, and that it was responsible (loaded term) for 30% of agricultural methane emissions and 11% of agricultural nitrous oxide emissions. This is a very oversimplified and misleading view. The source of the 30% and 11% figures that appear in the article is also a source of larger picture statistics that aren't mentioned, such as methane production from rice production in India accounts for 5% of the total methane production from agriculture in that country, and that the production of greenhouse gasses from all agricultural sources (in India) represent represent 16% of all greenhouse gasses emissions in India. Buried much later in the paragraph is a sentence that states that Climate Trace attributes 2022 total global greenhouse gasses from rice production at 1.2% of total global GHG emissions. This whole paragraph needs to be rewritten in a more neutral tone, identifying and quantifying the fact that the production of rice is a non-trivial contributor to global greenhouse gas production, possibly comparing it to other agricultural products if you want, but keeping the overall global impact appropriately balanced.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Checked back to July 2023 and I do not see edit wars or content disputes other than routine expansion of the article and related copyedits. Article has been semi-protected since May 2014 due to persistent vandalism.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	Taking images in order in which they appear in the article: YFile:20201102.Hengnan.Hybrid rice Sanyou-1.6.jpg is a screen capture that was taken from File:2020年11月2日 第三代杂交水稻晚稻亩产911.7公斤 周年亩产超1500公斤.webm on commons, plausibly tagged as CC-BY. YFile:Rice grains (IRRI).jpg was uploaded from Flickr and attributed to IRRI images with a CC-BY license. Since the time it was uploaded, the license on Flickr has changed from CC-BY to CC-BY-NC, but since Creative Commons licenses cannot be revoked in that manner, the file is still free to use under the original license. The Flickr user page [4] also currently states that all of the pictures in their portfolio are licensed using the Creative Commons "Attribution Only" license. So no problems with that one. YFile:Oryza sativa - Köhler–s Medizinal-Pflanzen-232.jpg is a Franz Eugen Köhler image that is accurately tagged as PD due to expired copyright. YFile:Oryza sativa of Kadavoor.jpg was uploaded by a Commons user who tagged it as own work released under the CC-BY-SA license. Metadata in the image matches the metadata of other images uploaded by the same user and the user has no history of blocks for copyright violations. No problems. YFile:KITLV 40091 - Kassian Céphas - Relief of the hidden base of Borobudur - 1890-1891.jpg plausibly tagged with PD tag as being out of copyright with detailed attribution data provided. YFile:Production of rice (2019).svg is tagged with CC-BY-SA license with a note that volunteers from Commons have independently verified the copyright status from the FAO. YFile:World Production Of Primary Crops, Main Commodities.svg is also an FAO image tagged with a CC-BY-SA license, uploaded to commons this month. It cites the source as the World Food and Agriculture- Statistical Yearbook 2023" publication. The copyright page for that document [5] cites that the publication is released under a CC-BY-NC license. In the PDF version of the report, specifically cited by the uploader, the image appears as Figure 21 on page 14 of the report (page 28 of the PDF) without any separate copyright information. The PDF version of the document also asserts the CC-BY-NC license on the unnumbered front pages of the report (the second page of the PDF). According to Creative Commons NonCommercial license, the CC-BY-NC license is considered non-free and should not be used on Wikipedia. In other news, the PDF version of that report that appears on Commons at File:World Food and Agriculture - Statistical Yearbook 2023.pdf has a VRT tag on it that the copyright holder has approved publication under the CC-BY-SA license. So it's technically correcttly tagged. A note should probably be added to the graph image file on commons so other people aren't confused by it in the future. Thanks to ToBeFree for assistance with this on Discord.  Fixed File:MapRice-1907-0823.jpg was also uploaded to Commons this month, tagged with a CC-BY-SA license. With a publication date given of 19 December 1907, it seems unlikely that it was published with a Creative Commons license, which did not exist until 2001. The link provided as a source of the image is a Russian site selling prints. Archive.org has an image of the original book here, but those scans are tagged with an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 license. The book is likely PD due to the expiration of copyright, but the copyright status and sourcing information on the image used in this article is problematic. Removed as not necessary here. YFile:Rice-combine-harvester, Katori-city, Japan.jpg is plausibly published under a CC-BY and GNU Free 1.2 license. YFile:Rice farmers Mae Wang Chiang Mai Province.jpg is plausibly published under a CC-BY-SA license. YFile:NP India burning 48 (6315309342).jpg was tagged at the time of uploading as CC-BY-SA and the source image remains on Flickr under the same license. YFile:Nellu.JPG is plausibly published under a CC-BY-SA license. YFile:Rice Animation.gif is plausibly released by the creator as PD. YFile:Stages of rice milling.jpg is plausibly published by the creator under GNU Free 1.2 YFile:NP Rice Emissions18 (5687953086).jpg is tagged as CC-BY-SA on Commons and the Flickr source. YFile:Chinese rice grasshopper (Oxya chinensis).jpg is plausibly published by the creator as CC-BY-SA.  Fixed File:Rice blast symptoms.jpg appears to be incorrectly tagged with a PD license because it appeared on a USDA Forest Service site, but that image is attributed on that site to Donald Groth, Louisiana State University AgCenter and Bugwood.org with a CC-BY license. Replaced image. YFile:Chloroxylon from India.JPG is plausibly published under a CC-BY-SA license. YFile:Rice diversity.jpg has the same notes as the Rice grains (IRRI).jpg image above, no issues with use on Wikipedia. YFile:Rice egypt (cropped).png is a derivative work of File:Rice egypt.png uploaded to commons on April 11, 2017 as own work, CC-BY-SA. While not specified on the image, the article itself cites this site as the source. The wayback machine shows the earliest captured date of this web page as April 13, 2017 and the image uploaded published most of the graphs on that page to Commons at the same time without any objections to date, so the copyright tagging is plausible. YFile:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Beeld van Dewi Sri de rijstgodin TMnr 60016918.jpg is plausibly published under a CC-BY-SA license. Added during the review: YFile:Rice blast.jpg is accurately tagged as public domain. Note: the original source linked on the Commons page has higher-resolution versions of this image for download.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	There are several issues.  Fixed Flowers is an inadequate caption for the image in the description subsection of the Biology section. Rewritten. Per WP:CAPOBVIOUS, it is usually unnecessary to state that an image is a map, as with the map of rice and rye cultivation. Just describe what the map shows. Map is gone. The same goes for "botanical illustration". Edited. The relevance of the rice combine harvester image is unclear because the Harvesting, drying, and milling does not make any mention of mechanical harvesters. Mentioned. The relevance of the unmilled to milled Japanese rice image is unclear because there is no explanation of the difference in the article text. Added description. The rice processing animated image is captioned as "rice processing" with further descriptions, but its relevance to the processing section is unclear because it appears to describe the anatomy of a rice grain and nothing about the processing. Added gloss to caption. The image in the climate change has a caption that is not succinct. A caption that describes the image as scientists measuring the greenhouse gas emmissions of rice production, or something along those lines, would be sufficient. Edited. The relevance of the satinwood tree is unclear because the article makes no mention of it. Removed. The graph appearing in the Salt-tolerant rice section has an unclear relevance because the article does not make any mention of salt tolerance of rice in Egypt. It is also unclear how this graph helps the reader understand salt-tolerant rice. In addition, the caption is not clearly worded; a typical reader will be unaware of what "ECe=5.5 dS/m" means. Removed.
	7. Overall assessment.	Chiswick Chap: Overall, the article in its current state does not meet the criteria for a good article. While the copyvio issues are technically quickfail criteria, I don't see a reason to do that since you are actively engaged in responding to this review and improving the article in response to it, (to the point where I had to ask you to hold off a couple days until I was able to get through this review), and I don't think those issues will be difficult to address. I haven't looked at the edits, but I suspect that all or most of the things I brought up in 1b have already been addressed, so that shouldn't be a major task ahead. I think the section 2b and section 4 objections will be similarly easy to address. The 3a scope objection may take a bit more time, but there are plenty of resources out there. My main concern was what I turned up in the source checking section in 2a. Aside from other things I came across while working on different sections, I only sampled a few sections, looking in detail at only 30 of the article's 167 references and found 7 of those that have problems, plus 2 more with close paraphrasing or copied text. I can see that you have put a lot of work into the article over the last few months, but there's still a lot of it that remains from its long history of additions, removals, and edits since it was created in February 2002. The article probably needs a pretty thorough reference review and cleanup. I'm putting this nomination on hold for now. The hold period is technically 7 days, but I'm fine with waiting significantly longer than that if there is ongoing progress. When you have had a chance to review what I have raised and addressed, asked me to clarify, or challenged anything I have raised, ping me on this page and I'll sit down with it again and see how it looks. When I look a second time, I will be clear that I will do a citation review on sections that I have not done above, so don't consider the items in 2a to be a comprehensive list of everything wrong in the article. The ball is in your court, I'll stay hands off unless you need me to clarify something, and I'll wait for you to let me know you're ready for me to look at it again. You've commented that the table isn't well-suited for threaded conversations, and I agree. It tends to work out best when you create your own section below this, as you have already started to do. RecycledPixels (talk) 19:25, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Replies

Table getting unworkable on this device so let's try this.

1a

Noted, thank you.

1b

Lead

• Start of lead: reordered.
• Staple: already cited in 'Food security'.
• Third-highest: added to text in 'Production', was already in graph.
• Sizable portions, many varieties, culinary preferences, monocot, well-suited to countries, steep hill: removed.

Accordingly, rewritten lead by summarizing the sections of the article (with inline comments for editors).

Layout

• Short paras/sections: Merged several.
• See also: trimmed list.

WTW

• Unsupported attributions:
  • Some sources claim: removed, we have FAO figures cited.
  • estimated in 2021 to be responsible: removed per another item below.
  • estimated that it takes about 2,500 litres: removed per another item below.

• Claims for says: edited x4.
• Disputed: removed.
• Botanicals: edited.
• Amino acids: edited.
• Just five countries: removed.
• Recently: removed.

2a

Biology

• Ratoon crop for up to 30 years: removed time period.
• Waterlogging: edited, removed [7].
• Alternate wetting and drying: rewritten.
• Deepwater rice: removed Bhuiyan source (deepwater localities, not needed here).

History of Cultivation

• First domesticated date: cite Molina 2011.

Environmental impacts

• Beef: removed.
• More water: removed paragraph as non-neutral / off-topic.

Other referencing issues

• Floating rice: removed.
• Largest collection: removed.
• "Knowledge Bank": replaced with 3 refs, one a specific page from Plantwise Knowledge Bank.
• "page 214" (3 times): cited full source, same each time.
• "No Early Spray": removed.
• "Home" (of IRRI): removed.

2b

• CBWInfo [97]: Removed, not needed.

• IRRI is an internationally respected authority on rice, and can be trusted on statements about rice cultivars and about itself.

• The Hindu [138]: Removed, not needed.

2c

Noted, thank you.

2d

• from Verheye 2010 [5]: Rewritten.

• from Rao Patil 2017 [68]: Rewritten.

• From Black 2010 [BBC, 66]: Rewritten.

3a

• Environmental impact: Burning rice straw: general issue for all crops. Covered at Stubble burning.
• Environmental impact: Pesticide runoff/overuse: general issues for all crops. Covered at Environmental impact of pesticides.

• Coverage of "Main aspects" vs my recent GA at Wheat: the focus of this article is agriculture and commerce. We have separate articles on Oryza and individual rice species. Wheat has a different focus, covering its many species and subspecies.
  • Description: section covers main aspects.
  • History: Added detail.
  • Evolution: Added brief phylogeny for harmony; since this is not a taxon article it is basically just context, unlike the situation in wheat.
  • Agronomy: Regrouped as chapter, added text and images.

• "Main aspects": noted, thank you.

3b

Noted, thank you.

4

• Climate change: Greenhouse gases: Edited.

5

Noted, thank you.

6a

Noted, thank you.

6b

Noted, thank you.

7

• Source checks: replaced some refs, removed some unverified text.

RecycledPixels: well, I've responded to all the comments, rewritten the lead, and looked over all the text and refs. I think I've reached the point where I've found what I can detect, so it's probably time for you to take another look. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:05, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Additional Comments

Items in this section do not relate to the Good Article Criteria, and so do not affect whether the article passes or fails this GA nomination, whether the items are addressed or not. They are merely suggestions for improvements.

Noted, thank you. I believe I've fixed many of these but as they're outside the criteria I have not addressed them individually.

• The images are formatted oddly, rendering the article with large, awkward white sections on my screen. Consider using thumbnail images aligned to the left or right rather than centered gallery images.
• Consider adding alt text to image captions per MOS:ALT.
• per MOS:CONSISTENT, the variety of English should be consistent throughout the article. I have not seen any discussion of which variety should be preferred in the article, but some discussion may be warranted.
• Not all sections of the article with units of measure provide conversions between Metric and imperial units, such as the commerce section. Other units are converted in a way that introduces false precision, such as "Pakistan (3.75 million metric tons (4.13 million short tons))".
• The second paragraph of the "Climate Change" subsection under the "Environmental Impacts" section is about the effect of climate change on the production of rice, not the effect of the production of rice on climate change, and should be moved to a more appropriate section, such as one that describes the production of rice (doesn't exist in the article's current form).
• Some sections have WP:OVERCITE problems with many citations attached to a simple, uncontroversial statement.
• Many incorrectly-formatted references. Since the provided citation generally gets me to the right place, they aren't GA-FAIL items, but they should be fixed.
  • Reference 6 "More rice with less water" does not identify the author of the paper, or the complete title of the paper.
  • Reference 7 "Plants capable of surviving flooding" does not identify the correct authors, title, date, or clearly state the website the article appears on (uu.nl is not obvious to most people)
  • Reference 8 "IRRI Rice Knowledge Bank" does not identify the correct title of the article.
  • Reference 39 "Indian farmer sets new record..." does not have a correct URL to the article.
  • Reference 40 "Grassroots heroes lead..." does not identify the author of the article.
  • Reference 41 "Chinese whispers over rice..." does not identify the authors of the article. "The Telegraph" is a common publication name and should include a publication-place= parameter in the citation to disambiguate the publication.
  • Reference 44 "Guide to Rice" does not correctly identify the title of the article.
  • Reference 60 "Meat accounts for nearly..." does not identify the author of the article.
  • Reference 69 "Virtual Water Trade" does not properly identify the title of the chapter, the authors of the chapter, the editor of the book, the publisher or publisher location of the book, or the publication date. But before you fix it, see my note about reference 69 in the "references don't support cited material" section.
  • Reference 70 "How better rice..." does not identify the publication date. I don't have access to the article to see if an author is named.
  • Reference 71 "How much water does..." incorrectly identifies the publication name, and does not identify the author, publication date, or page number.
  • Reference 100 "Rice Varieties and Management Tips..." is a 32-page publication. No page numbers or authors are cited.
  • Reference 103 "Bangladeshi farmers banish..." does not identify the article author, and does not completely identify the publisher of the website.
  • Reference 104 "IRRI.org" is a link to a 7:45 YouTube video. It does not identify the title of the video, the author of the video, or the location within the video that supports the cited statement.
  • Reference 108 "The pesticide paradox" does not identify the publisher of the website where this article appears or the accessdate when the information appeared on the website.
  • Reference 109 "Three Gains, Three Reductions" inaccurately identifies the title of the article, and the publisher of the website. It does not identify the author of the article (you'll need to click on "The Project" header to figure out who "MONI" is).
  • Reference 124 "Rice" does not identify the publisher of the website or the publication date.
  • Reference 126 "The International Rice Genebank" does not clearly identify the publisher of the website.
  • Reference 129 "NERICA:Rice for Life" incorrectly identifies the publisher/author of the article
  • Reference 132 "Rice Varieties" incorrectly identifies the author of this article.
  • Reference 138 "Swarma Sub1: flood resistant..." incorrectly identifies the publication date of the "article".
  • Reference 141 "Newly-discovered rice gene..." does not identify the publisher of the website or accurately report the date of the article.
  • Reference 143 "Rice Breeding Course..." does not have an accessdate for this web publication.
  • Reference 144 "Less Salt Please" does not clearly and completely identify the publisher of the website.
  • Reference 146 "Do rice and salt go together?" does not clearly and completely identify the publisher of the website.
  • Reference 149 "Feeding the world one..." does not clearly identify the publisher of the website
  • Reference 154 "Rice in Religion and Tradition" does not accurately identify the publication, publisher, location, page numbers. Ahuja, S. C. & Ahuja, U. (2006). Rice in religion and tradition. In Souvenir, 2nd International Rice Congress, New Delhi, October 9–13 (pp. 45–52).
  • Reference 167 "Five rice varieties..." does not adequately disambiguate between the several publishers named "The Nation" and should include a publisher location.

Second reading

Thank you for the quick responses. I will take a second look at the article now that you have made the changes listed above. For this, I will be using This version of the page which reflects its current state. RecycledPixels (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

1b again

•  Fixed. No new issues seen after latest revisions

2a again

•  Not fixed I looked at the newly-reorganized Agronomy section and the Biotechnology section, a total of 25 of the article's present 147 references. There are still a number of referencing issues that I encountered in this spot check. The article does not meet the GA criteria's standards for this category.
  • Many thanks. I've addressed the items below. We seem to be finding fewer and smaller items, i.e. we are converging. I'll check the article over again (trying to see it afresh); I've scanned the whole article again and fixed some more issues.
    • RecycledPixels: I have BOTH fixed the identified items AND scanned the article for issues I can detect, and fixed those I found. I am not just addressing the flagged issues, but of course I've addressed them too.

Agronomy:

• Across Asia, unmilled rice or "paddy" (Indonesian and Malay padi), is almost entirely the product of smallholder agriculture, and is often harvested manually. is unsourced. I'm not sure it's entirely accurate, either, but being able to verify that information would help me make that decision.
  • Updated, that was the traditional practice. Added a sub-ref; IRRI has a page-subpage-subsubpage-... system.

Biotechnology:

• The first three sentences in the "High-yielding varieties" section seem to be sourced to reference 114 (Hettel 2016). The first sentence is confusingly worded, since I would assume that most varieties that were produced prior to the Green Revolution were also aiming to increase production.
  • Edited.
• The source mentions that the IRRI's primary mission was to develop new high-yielding rice varieties by modifying the plant's architecture, and I saw in the Green Revolution article that the IRRI was established in 1960 during that Green Revolution, so perhaps it could be reworded. The article, however does not tie the growth of industrialism in Asia to the increase of rice yields, so the second sentence definitely needs a {{citation needed}} tag.
  • Removed, the sentence is about the economics of the Green Revolution, off-topic for this article.
• I might be missing out on something, somewhere, but I don't understand the "Rice Car" name given here in quotes, which doesn't appear in the reference or in the IR8 article.
  • Reworded.

• The rest of the High-yielding varieties paragraph is cited to reference 115 (Yamaguchi 2008). It's a 30-page article and it's very technical, but I can't find any of the information that is cited to it in that source article. Can you give me a page number so I can narrow it down? I tried searching for "photos" as the beginning of the word "photosynthesis or photosynthetic" but the one instance of "photosynthetic" has nothing to do with photosynthetic investments in the stem. I likewise could not find any instances of the words "fertilizer", "nitrogen", or "yield".
  • Removed Yamaguchi and the technical description; added a simple description based on Hettel 2016.

• In the Drought-tolerant rice section, Under drought conditions, without sufficient water to afford them the ability to obtain the required levels of nutrients from the soil, conventional commercial rice varieties can be severely affected—for example, yield losses as high as 40% have affected some parts of India, with resulting losses of around US$800 million annually. The cited source is much more vague than the precise figure of 40% for yield losses in India due to water scarcity.
  • Edited.

• The International Rice Research Institute conducts research into developing drought-tolerant rice varieties, including the varieties 5411 and Sookha dhan, currently being employed by farmers in the Philippines and Nepal respectively. The attached source does not mention variety 5411. Is that another name for one of the varieties mentioned in the source? If so, which is the more precise name? If it's 5411, is there a better source that uses that name, or some way you can help a reader verify the article's statement if they question it?
  • Similar but different drought-tolerant varieties. Updated the sentence from the article.

2b again

 Fixed. Questionable sources removed. I'll relent on the IRRI item, but I still think superlatives about an organization should be cited to neutral, independent sources.

2d again

 Fixed. Issues resolved, no new issues seen in the source check I performed in section 2a above.

3a again

 Fixed. Items addressed or rebutted.

4 again

 Fixed. Item of concern has been addressed.

6a check on new images added since GA review start

• YFile:Kerbau Jawa.jpg plausibly published as own work under GNU and CC licenses.
• YFile:Cambodian farmers planting rice.jpg published to Flickr with CC-BY license and verified by FlickreviewR bot in 2014 (original no longer on Flickr).
• YFile:Rice-planting-machine 2,katori-city,japan.JPG is plausibly published under a CC-BY and GNU Free 1.2 license.
• YFile:Pana Banaue Rice Terraces (Cropped).jpg is a derivative of File:Pana Banaue Rice Terraces.jpg, uploaded to en.wikipedia as self-taken by a user in good standing and later moved to commons. Plausibly published under CC and GNU licenses.

7 overall again

•  Failed. Chiswick Chap, I still have concerns on the source check I performed when revisiting this. I see that while I have been working on this second review, you have addressed the issues above as well as others in the article. I have listed the issues under section 2a of the GA criteria, but they're probably actually 2b "all Wikipedia:Content that could reasonably be challenged must be cited" items. In this most recent round, some of the identified items, like the "Rice Car" issue, variety 5411, and the confusingly-worded first sentence in the High-yielding varieties were mostly small issues that wouldn't have held me up if that's all I found. But the source misattribution examples are a big deal. The unsourced statements could also be considered source misattribution since they were sandwiched near or between cited material. 7 of the 25 sources that I looked at were from a section that I had already included in the original source check, so I wasn't expecting to find any problems with that section, and I didn't. But I do want to stress again that I am only doing spot checks of references, and the list of identified items should not be considered a comprehensive review of all the problems in the article. When I do another review of this article, I will not check the same sections. Leaving article on hold for now, ping me when you feel that you have had enough time to check the references and that it is ready for another look. RecycledPixels (talk) 19:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Checking all cited claims (not previously checked)

• RecycledPixels: which sections have you not checked? Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:51, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Commerce
  • Production: Checked and updated.
  • Food security: Checked and simplified.
  • Processing: Checked and simplified.
  • Trade: checked and simplified.
  • Yield records: checked and updated.
  • Worldwide consumption: checked and updated.

• Food
  • Eating qualities: checked and simplified.
  • Nutrition: checked and simplified.
  • Golden rice: checked and simplified.

• Pests, weeds, and diseases
  • Pests and weeds: checked and simplified.
  • Diseases: checked and simplified.
  • Integrated pest management: checked and simplified.

• Ecotypes and cultivars
  • : checked and simplified.

• Model organism
  • : checked and simplified.

• In human culture.
  • : checked and simplified.

• (listed the unchecked level 2 sections) RecycledPixels (talk) 19:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
  • (added subsections) OK, I'll scan those again now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
    • RecycledPixels: well, I've always adopted a WP:AGF approach to existing text, believing that edits have been made reasonably well with at least some attempt at citation. The systematic checks I've just made, listed above, prove that this was not the case in this article, as some items had clearly been added without a source, while others had been "updated" years later, introducing a range of errors. To fix this, I have radically revised these sections, replacing many old sources with far fewer newer ones. I believe we now have a clean, fully-verified text that covers the subject clearly and concisely. If you do find anything wrong, believe me it wasn't for want of effort, and I trust you'll let me fix it, it shouldn't take long if there is anything. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Third review

Looking good. For the third check, I will be looking at this version of the article, at the 13 references listed in the "Food" and the "Ecotypes and cultivars" sections. RecycledPixels (talk) 17:34, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Source check looks good in those sections, plus I checked the revisions made after the last review. I went back through the article to make sure none of the recent overhauling has introduced any other GA Criteria issues, and of course found none. The only sticky point (so to speak) that I found, in the Ecotypes and cultivars section, was the sentence Much of southeast Asia grows sticky or glutinous rice varieties. I'm not quite sure what you were aiming for there. It's true, it is grown in parts of Southeast Asia, but according to the source, about 37 countries from five continents have grown glutinous rice. I don't think that the source would support the assertion that glutinous rice is the primary variety grown in Southeast Asia but I haven't taken the time to grind the numbers. As it is, the statement is true, and tied to a verifiable source, so it's nothing that blocks the nomination. In its current state, the article is in good shape and there is nothing that prevents me from passing the nomination. Thank you for all the hard work you've put into this article.  Passed RecycledPixels (talk) 19:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)