Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sind sparrow/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 07:55, 29 August 2014 [1].


Sind sparrow[edit]

Nominator(s): —innotata 07:07, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is article is about a somewhat obscure bird, and I think it meets the FA criteria by covering most of what there is worth saying about this species. Shyamal also contributed a good bit, and thanks to him and J. M. Garg for the article being well illustrated with images and a distribution map. —innotata 07:07, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Aa77zz[edit]

There are places where I think the text might need polishing.
Description

  • "The Sind sparrow is very similar to the house sparrow, and both sexes resemble house sparrows, but it is slightly smaller and males and females each have features that distinguish them from the house sparrow." This is clunky with "house sparrow" used three times.
  • link mantle
    • Linked an article. Not the most useful one, but it's the best we have. —innotata 17:13, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The male has the crown and nape grey and the lower back and rump rufous." I would put the adjective before the noun: a grey crown...

Taxonomy

  • The first three sentences contain "described".
"Blyth's description was described" is not ideal, -> "Blyth's description was contained in"? Aa77zz (talk) 12:06, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, I meant published, fixed. —innotata 16:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and possible relation with" -> "and a possible relationship with"?

Behaviour

  • "during which two clutches are raised by most pairs" - perhaps put this at the end of the paragraph where you discuss that both the male and female contribute etc.
    • That explains the duration of the breeding season; most temperate birds only raise one brood per year. —innotata 17:13, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not convinced by this argument. Aa77zz (talk) 12:06, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's the only way to explain the typical duration of the breeding season, given what data exist; this doesn't have that much to do with discussing behavioral patterns during the raising of young. I supposed I could add it as a sentence at the end, but the information seems more helpful there. —innotata 16:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The nest has an entrance higher on the sides" - I don't understand this.

Aa77zz (talk) 12:50, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Is there any information published on the colour and size of the eggs?
    • I haven't found any yet. Most contemporary sources omit this information, and the Sind sparrow wasn't collected so much as other species in the 19th century—it wasn't in the British Museum when they published their catalogue of eggs I usually use as a reference. —innotata 16:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why are some journal articles included in References and others in Works cited? Compare Whistler (1922) and Ticehurst (1922).
    • My preference is to put any very long works, in which it is useful to give the particular pages referenced, in 'Works cited', regardless of their type. —innotata 16:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • When using the journal template the output generated by series= keyword is confusing, consider putting "series=11th series" etc Aa77zz (talk) 12:06, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • My personal preference (which you can obviously ignore) is to include the volume number of a book with the title - as with Summers-Smith (2009), rather than using the volume= keyword which gives an ugly bold number. Aa77zz (talk) 12:06, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd rather not, where there's no title for the volume. —innotata 16:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A small point - in a number of places it would be good if the text could be rejigged to avoid repetition (provided this doesn't introduce ambiguity):

  • "Discovered around 1840, this species went undetected for several decades after its discovery."
  • "some birds enter drier habitats as they disperse short distances from their breeding habitat,"
  • "and caring for the young, and usually raise two clutches of three to five young each breeding season."

Support - the article meets the criteria. Well done. Aa77zz (talk) 12:24, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from J Milburn[edit]

  • "plumage features" As opposed to non-plumage feathers?
  • "Blyth's description was described in" ??
    • Oops, I meant published. —innotata 16:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "two species bred in the same areas without interbreeding" Would a more useful link not be to biological species concept?
    • Nah, there's a lot more to the biological species concept than sympatry, and sympatry is not exclusive to the biological species concept. —innotata 16:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It'd be helpful if you mentioned what "Sind" refers to.
  • Any parasites or predators? Any cultural significance? Any word on how long they live? What do the eggs look like?
    • Probably not much, and it'll be hard to find. In detail: There may be information somewhere on parasites, and maybe individual listings of animals recorded eating this species (although it's hard to tell apart from the house sparrow, so maybe not). Information on eggs is hard to find, since the usual suspects didn't have any of its eggs. I expect there's no information at all on survival; nobody's done a study specifically on it, and if there even are banding records of lifespan (unlikely), they probably wouldn't tell much. As for cultural significance, supposedly it's the unofficial provincial bird of Sindh, but that's pretty tenuous, and I don't have a reference (once again it's hard to tell apart from the house sparrow, so there might not be much!).

Nice looking little article. I made some changes- please check them. J Milburn (talk) 12:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Images are mostly fine (File:PasserPyrrhonotusKeulemans.jpg is particularly pleasant). File:PasserPyrrhonotusMap.svg could do with a link to the file on which the map is based, and, ideally, a fuller citation. J Milburn (talk) 16:16, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done. —innotata 01:38, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Jim[edit]

Nice work, A few nitpicks, Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:24, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hume and Ticehurst noted a resemblance to, and a possible relation with, the Dead Sea sparrow of the Middle East and Balochistan.[17][20] William Robert Ogilvie-Grant and Henry Ogg Forbes noted a resemblance to the Abd al-Kuri sparrow, endemic to the island of Abd al-Kuri, in their 1899 description of that species.[28] This was also noted by Guy M. Kirwan in a 2008 study.[29]
  • 'The Sind sparrow feeds mainly on the seeds of grasses and other plants such as Polygonum plebeium. They may...
  • I thought it was unlikely that the ggs were undescribed, so a couple of minutes searching found a referenced description of the eggs and the original
  • Support, all looks good Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:11, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • FN14, 28: page?
  • FN1 has an accessdate but FN36 does not - be consistent
  • Be consistent in whether books include locations. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:45, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 21:25, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I have gone through the entire text and most of the cited references. The content is excellent and referencing as rigorous as can be expected. Shyamal (talk) 08:54, 25 August 2014 (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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