Wikipedia:Peer review/Albatross/archive1

Albatross

I have been trying to bring this article up to FA status, and it's much improved with a lot of the recent new research on the family included. I have almost all the relevant information on the biology and conservation of albatrosses, so I'm submitting it to peer review now. Assuming that we can get this featured it would be the first family to achive featured article status (though it won't be the last as I am already collecting info on a few more families to be my next few projects). One note, I will also be spending the next few weeks turning the remaining albatross species and genera that are red-links into articles as well. At any rate, comments, questions, suggestions and critisisms please! Sabine's Sunbird 17:47, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite to comment. I agree that sorting out the redlinks (& not just the species and genus ones) is a prerequisite to FA status. I'd also like to offer the following opinions:

• I think the article needs a better taxobox picture; the one there at present is only barely recognisable as an albatross
• The "new taxonomy" is controversial at the species level, and for the moment, the individual species pages should reflect the widely-accepted view that there are only c.14 species, and this page aligned with that. The debate should be summarised in the article somewhere however.
• The "petrel" wikilink links to a page which is about petrels in the vernacular sense, rather than to the Procellariidae page which is what I believe is intended
• Vagrancy of three albatross species into the North Atlantic (and the long-term presence of Black-browed in British/Faeroese gannetries) would be worth including as a passing mention in the distribution section
• The words that attempt to describe the phylogeny of the genera could be clearer. I can't quite be sure that my visualisation of the tree is correct
• Should distribution & taxonomy be two separate sections? They are two subjects that are not any more closely related than any other two in the article. In fact if aything Taxonomy & evolution could be combined.
• Could you be specific about what the "North Pacific" is
• Waved feeds on the coast of South America? or off?
• I'm surprised by the comment about AOU & Ciconiiformes. You ought to check that that comment is correct.it is correct. weird, for sure, but S&A really did put them in as one family in the Ciconiformes. Sabine's Sunbird 00:49, 16 October 2005 (UTC) Duh, re-read your comment, and you're right. Thanks for catching that. Sabine's Sunbird 15:48, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
• primitive (i.r.t. Sooty albatrosses) is spelt wrongly, and this should say something like "at that time believed to be primitive)
• the section on generic taxonomy is quite verbose & repeats itself a bit - could do with a rewrite Jim broke it up and I removed some of the obvious repetition, it's better now I hope. Sabine's Sunbird 16:19, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
• Sibley & Ahlquist's work ought to be mentioned in the taxonomy section It was mentioned in the evolution section, now all one section as per earlier comment Sabine's Sunbird 21:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• The sentence starting "The molecular evidence" - same problem in visualising the tree. Perhaps what we need in this article is a cladogram?
• Needs a proof read - I spotted an "is was", an "Oliocene", an "accute", a "colinies", an "essentail", a "my" instead of a "by", an "avarage"
• 1st use of mya could have the unit spelled out in full for clarity
• beak - should say bill and be wikilinked
• you could mention the unguis in the morphology section
• glide ratio deserves an article of its own maybe? Not come across this as an explicit concept before
• the phrase "use them without understanding" is too anthropomorphic for my liking - could be worded better I think
• the recent work on systematics by Penhallurick and Wink should be mentioned somewhere
• Some info on places where albatross viewing is part of the local tourist economy would be worth including (e.g. Kaikoura)
• An albatross category for this and all other albatross articles would be a good idea - I believe this should be standard practice for all biological families
• Inclusion of current threat statuses for each species would be a useful addition
• How about brief descriptions of the morphological characters of each genus?
• Perhaps worth including some info on longevity
• Info on the Birdlife albatross campaign would be worth including

Hope that helps. SP-KP 19:19, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

• • Wow! That's a lot to react to. I'm at work now, but I'll adress those ponts asap. But, a few brief points, your comment about the taxonomy re the number of species - 21 is the most accepted number that I can find. The 14 species dates back to 1992 HBW - after which there have been a great deal of work. As for the authors you suggested, I found this reference Only recently a highly-questionable paper by Penhallurick and Wink (2004) has argued for lumping all of the species promoted by Robertson & Nunn (1998), whereas others support he recognition of at least some of these ‘new species’ (Burg and Croxall 2001;Abbott and Double 2003a; Burg and Croxall 2004). [1] Given that scientific concensus is generally against retaining 14 species, I went for the IUCN/Birdlife International accepted species list. But perhaps that is a discussion for the talk page rather than here.

Apart from that I agree with most of your comments, and I'll do my very best to address them quickly. I am disappointed that you disliked the taxobox image, I rather liked it. Sabine's Sunbird 19:42, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I should clarify my comments about the taxobox pic. I don't tend to think about my personal aesthetic tastes when assessing Wikipedia content. What with the amount of brainpower that assessing content on information-conveying grounds requires of me, I don't think I have the mental resources to make assessments of the artistic merit of the content on top of that. I also don't feel I have the attributes or qualification to do that. I don't dislike it as a picture; it's what you human beings might call "atmospheric", I guess...

I think the article would benefit from retaining it, as it would serve to broaden its appeal. I just feel that a picture above a taxobox should convey the distinctive features of the taxon in question. I could go to the shearwater page, post a similar silhouetted shearwater there, and people looking at these two pages would think "blimey - albatrosses and shearwaters look bloody difficult to tell apart".

On the taxonomy, I'm sceptical about P&W's findings too. I wouldn't feel comfortable using their work as the basis for decisions until corroborated by others. I only mentioned including that as it is a recent, detailed work covering the subject and so shouldn't be left out. I agree with the source that you cited that the albatrosses need to be assessed against a species-concept framework like Helbig et al's British list criteria. At the moment albatross taxonomy is based on out of date ideas of what a species is, and so it's quite possible that the revisionists are right. The issue to my mind is that the "interim taxonomy" was not supported by the kind of rigorous data that such a revision requires, and this is why it has proved so controversial. I think that an approach which might help here would be to canvass opinion on the various birding mailing lists and see whether a consensus emerges. SP-KP 21:35, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

One other external link I'd suggest including (I'd like to see the corresponding pages linked for all bird families, in fact): Don Roberson's family page SP-KP 21:49, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

• • Okay, lets see. I've already mentioned two points. And I've struck through the small niggly things that were easy to change. If you aren't happy with the changes unstrike them and let me know!
  • The vagrancy of the three species in the NA is alluded to in the section about flight. Beyond that it strikes me as a good thing to keep out of the main article and in the individual species articles.
  • I wikilinked beak- the wikipedia article is at beak not bill. Is there a particular preference for one or the other, I always thought they could be used interchangably. And the ungis, is that the hook at the end?
  • glide ratio may deserve it's own article but that is one for the physics people, I found the bird flight article hard enough!
  • the phrase "use them without understanding" is too anthropomorphic for my likingHmm, funnily enough this is phrased in much the same way as Ticknell did in his book. I don't think, in the context of language, even albatross language, that understanding is the wrong word to use.
  • As for the rest of your points, they are good ideas I'll add to the article. Sabine's Sunbird 21:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll take another look at the article (prob not until tomorrow now though). Just on the beak/bill thing - bill is the preferred scientific term, as I understand it, beak being more a colloquial name. The unguis/ungues (need to check spelling) is/are the plates that cover the outer portion of the mandibles, the upper one terminating with the hook (I think they each have a separate name ... "maxillary unguis" springs to mind for one of them, can't remember which). I'll do some more thinking on how to explain what I meant about "use without understanding" - I've failed to convey my objection well here. SP-KP 22:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I think I know what you mean about "use without understanding', it's a failing of using the same words for human and animal behaviour. How is the new wording? Sabine's Sunbird 16:19, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The specifics of Albatross taxonomy are over my head, but it seems that in this case it may be best to discuss that different authors have included different species and how those descriptions differ. A mention of oceanic longline fishing and its impact on albatross - especially since there are moves now to minimise the practice- could be interesting. Lastly the lead is a bit short- for an article of this length go for 2 to 3 paragraphs that summarise the content of the article.--nixie 02:48, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I had planned to expand the intro, and have now done so. Added some more info on the conservation as well. Sabine's Sunbird 21:59, 16 October 2005 (UTC)