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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/A History of British Fishes/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 Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 26 March 2023 [1].

A History of British Fishes

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Nominator(s): Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:15, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat to my surprise, there doesn't appear to be any article on Wikipedia about a fish book, so to remedy that I bring you William Yarrell's landmark publication that was the standard in its field for much of the 19th century Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:15, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:William_Yarrell._Photograph_by_Maull_%26_Polyblank._Wellcome_V0027361.jpg: license provided doesn't match source
  • File:Jonathan_Couch.jpg: source link is dead; when and where was this first published? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:10, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Tim riley

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A pleasure to read and review this article. I share the nominator's surprise that this is our first article on a book about fish, and am glad that the first is so good. A handful of quibbles, none of which affect my support:

  • Lead
  • "describing every type of fish known to occur in Britain" – does "Britain" here mean the UK, including Ireland, as it did then? And also, does it include offshore territorial waters? Or even the UK continental shelf (if the legal distinction was made in Yarrell's day, that is)?
  • "commemorated in a number of species" – a bit woolly: if the actual number of species is known it would be good to mention it. Even "in at least x species" would be an improvement.
  • Format
  • "he naturally followed the older man's format" – the adverb looks a wee bit editorial.
  • The blockquote – we don't, I think, usually put blockquotes in italics.
  • Production and publication
  • "to shoot and fish around London" – this would, I think, benefit from a little expansion. In Yarrell's day London technically meant just the City: all the rest was in Middx, Surrey and Kent. I don't know where the nobs used to shoot or fish in the areas of those counties nearest the urban bits, but something on the lines of "on estates near London", or even actual place names, might be beneficial here. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:44, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reception
  • "There was a generally appreciative reception from Yarrell's fellow naturalists, too" – a very minor stylistic point, but to my mind the "too" doesn't add anything useful and is redundant.

That's my lot. I am glad to support the elevation of this article, which seems to me to meet all the FA criteria. Tim riley talk 14:47, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Gog the Mild

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Recusing to review.

  • "Interest in natural history was growing rapidly in the early nineteenth century". Would it be worth putting a geographical restriction on this?
  • Is it known how many copies were printed for any of the editions?
  • "Bewick had himself planned to ..." I'm not sure about "himself". Who else could he be?

That's all. Great work. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:18, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Kusma

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Adding this to my list of things to review. —Kusma (talk) 14:16, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lead: for an ignoramus like me with no idea who Thomas Bewick is, it is a bit hard to understand how the book follows his lead. Just making it "the example of Thomas Bewick's natural history books" would be enough to clarify.
  • Format (or "Format and content"?): Were any of the species previously unknown/unpublished? Is Bewick's swan seems the only species named by Yarrell? (It is the only one on Wikispecies, for whatever it's worth) Are there other particularly interesting species (anything extinct, for example) worth commenting on?
  • As far as I can see there were no fish species identified by Yarrell, there were a couple of other birds, now only subspecies, beyond the scope of this fish article I think. Similarly, he had a Great Auk egg and some books on fossils, but appears to have had no significant collection extinct species. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:48, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    OK.
  • Other resources: "in the major London's important Leadenhall Market" sounds a bit garbled
  • Production and publication: are we sure they were "the best wood engravers in London"? (Says who?)
  • Reception: I wonder if it is worth tracking down the contemporary reviews and citing from them directly. I found the Gentleman's Magazine one, which says among other things "the work before us is, perhaps, the most perfect of its kind", which is perhaps a nice quote. Here is an insanely long article in the Quarterly Review from 1837.
  • Do we know who named the fish species after Yarrell and why? It would be good to know whether these names were related to the present book.
  • Checking this, I found a genus named for him too. As always with taxa, the names and date of the people who named the species are known, but all are obscure and the accessible documentation amounts at most to saying that they were named in honour of him. Adding the names, with nothing substantial to justify doing so, seems unnecessary clutter Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:48, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notes: I do not particularly like the inline external links to MeasuringWorth; any reason why you prefer this over our in-house {{Inflation}}?
  • Bibliography: The A History of British Fishes section is a bit inconsistent about commas and whether to write volume with a v or a V.
  • Images: The seahorses are great, but I'm not convinced they belong here.

An enjoyable article, and most of my points are quite minor. —Kusma (talk) 21:29, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kusma All done I think, thanks for reviewing Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:26, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My queries have been dealt with / answered satisfactorily. Support. —Kusma (talk) 19:00, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • What is your citation for the various 2021 inflation figures?
  • FN1 is missing both author and publication date. Ditto FN21, check throughout
  • Why is there a separate Cited texts vs Bibliography section? Is the latter intended to be a Further reading section? One of the entries in Bibliography is cited.

Nikkimaria (talk) 21:24, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

SC
Lead
  • "William Yarrell was a London": just "Yarrell" – as you've named full named him above?
  • "by John Thompson, and three editions and their two supplements": that's a comma splice. Semi-colon maybe?
Author
  • "His father": William's or Francis's?
Written sources
  • How does History of British Quadrupeds include British fish?!
  • "species of fishes": "species of fish"?
  • "£1100": I think I'm right in saying that 1100 should be 1,100 (ditto £4000 lower down). Ignore me if I'm misremembering the arcane meanderings of the MOS.
  • Leadenhall Market: this surprised me, as it was better known as a meat, game and cheese market. Billigsgate Market would be a better fit for a fish aficionado, but if that's what the sources say, then who am I who pipe up!

That's my lot – I had to scratch around for these as it's written to the usual high standard I expect from your noms. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 12:57, 25 March 2023 (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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