Wikipedia:Peer review/Seabird/archive2

Seabird

This is the second peer review for this article. The first one went quite well but I was never quite happy enough with the article to nominate it for FA. Since then I have continued to work on and off on it, and have most importantly widened the references and cited a lot of facts. It was close to FA, and still is, but needs that extra little bit of effort and some more eyes. The subject is huge, so this is an overview of the important aspects of seabird biology. One of the most fustrating things about seabirds is that for every statement you make you seem to need to qualify with of course, not all seabirds do this! Anyways, please help by pointing out what still seems weak, what statements that need cites still haven't got them, all that stuff. Thanks! Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, AZ _t 23:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've only glanced at this yet, but it looks brilliant. I did notice that in some places you have spaces between periods and references that should be removed. I'll try and go through this more thoroughly as soon as I can. darkliight^[πalk] 08:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting and well balanced, but could do with some more citations for facts (even though it has a lot of references they aren't necesarily all cited in the appropriate places). There a lot of generalizations, but I guess that is hard to avoid in such a wide subject. I gave it a copyedit to remove some repetition and redundancy. Some more specific comments (more or less in order):
- The qualification in the opening sentence is a little awkward. They spend much of their lives at sea - I don't think you need the rider.
- The lead has a few fuzzy statements about species that would read better if sharpened up. At the moment it has a feeling of trying to cover all possible variations by species rather than just providing an introduction to seabirds.
- ~~Albatross or albatrosses? Swaps between the two throughout the article.~~
- ~~"unlike terrestrial birds" - is that the correct name for non-seabirds? Terrestrial birds make me think of flightless birds.~~
- ~~"In spite of their reputation as pirates" doesn't really add anything to the sentence (apart from a second use of pirate).~~
- ~~"Overall many hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of birds" - make a decision.~~
- ~~"even well meaning tourists, can flush a colony" - flush a colony? What does that mean? Drive off the parent birds?~~
- "The removal of these introduced species has led to increases in surviving species " - an increase in populations of surviving species or an increase in the number of species surviving (i.e. a decrease in the rate of species going extinct)?
- The Lord of the Rings reference could do with being trimmed - details of where it is used isn't necessary
- The species list could do with some punctuation to separate the latin from the common names (just being picky now).

Hope this helps. - Yomangani ^talk 01:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your review. On the matter of references, that is the majority of the work I am doing now, I hunt them down and add them. I originally wrote this before inline citation was important on WP and while I know that it's accurate tracking down the papers needed is taking time. But I know that a lot more needs to be done. As for generalisations, yep, it's the nature of the beast. Getting this far has taken me 18 months cause its so fustrating to write. You can never write "seabirds do X" cause there are always some that don't!. All your other points are good and I will deal with them. Ta! Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have dealt with each of the comments, please unstrike them if you feel it isn't there yet. I have cleaned up the intro (a great deal of which was hand me down from the original article I started with), but I may do more so I haven't striked it. On reconsideration I have decided to leave the LOTR bit as is. Having an explanation of how birds fit into popular culture, rather than simply stating they do with an example, is more rewarding, and it leaves less room for every fanboy to come and list how their fad has a seabird in it. I'd rather have one example, explained well, than a list namechecking every reference. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delay in reviewing the changes - everything looks good now (I don't think the intro needs any more work), and you are probably right in trying to fend off fanboy additions by keeping the LOTR explanation. Yomangani ^talk 00:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]