Talk:Ducie Island/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting topic. Review coming soon. J Milburn (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

First, second and third read troughs

Ok, here goes- "Luna Puesta, later he renamed it La Encarnación" Rephrase? "that was sent" Who was? Is there a particular reason you've chosen to lead with imperial measurements? "Native name: Fenua-manu" Word as word and a foreign term- italics? "The lagoon is inaccessible to shipping, large whirlpools in the lagoon are often caused by the tunnels that drain it to the sea." Very awkward phrasing, and a better introduction to the lagoon would be nice Perhaps it would be helpful if the various islets and where they can be seen were named in the caption to the main image? "horseshoe ridge" What's that? "Two other plant species were reported in 1971, but were not found in 1987." What were they? And what were these expeditions? See, for comparison, Amaranthus brownii, where all expeditions to the island searching for the plant are mentioned. "poisonous fish and dangerous sharks" Species? Also, why is this in the section on flora? This presumably belongs split between geography and fauna "Along the island can be found" Awkward construction, and which island in particular? Or do you mean the whole thing? "In expeditions to the island" Again, when? Ideally, it'd be good to see mention of every time the island has been visited if there are fewer than, say, 15. "Foslie and Porolithon onkodes" Also, Foslie is not a species, it's a genus. "The only mammal known to inhabit the island is the Polynesian Rat, there are 138 registered species in the lagoon" How do these two sentence relate to one another? "registered species in the lagoon" Registered? Species of what? I'm not really understanding this idea "Nearly 90% of the Murphy's Petrel population is in Ducie, along with Herald and Kermadec Petrels." Again, I don't understand. Is that all year? Are nearly 90% of the other species there too? I'm starting to think that flora/fauna should probably go after history. Ok, presumably it was first discovered by the natives, but then it was found by Europeans? The paragraph on the whalers needs rephrasing; it's not at all clear "When an explanation was required to the look-out man by the master" from the, surely? "crew did several tries" colloquial "The crew did several tries to release the ship but they did not succeed, the master navigated in a rescue boat towards Pitcairn island, were he was assisted by the population and returned aboard of the Edward O'Brien, an American boat to rescue the rest of the crew." Long, awkward sentence "were the reason for the wrecking was undetermined, whether if it was a calculation mistake by the master or an unknown current that carried the ship to the island" Again "Captain G.F. Jones under the commission of R. T. Simmons" full names? "visited the atoll and the near islands along with Pitcairners and annexed the islands to the United Kingdom." Very awkward The refs, for the most part, look pretty good. "South Pacific handbook." Caps? I think some more of the publishers could be linked Do we not have authors for any of the bottom references? Footnotes 3, 8 and 11 have apparently unwarranted italics, and are we certain they are reliable? In all, I'm not convinced that this article is ready for featured status. The writing is pretty poor in some places (in addition to my comments above, note the changes I made) and I think there's a lot more to be said than has been said already- for an island of this sort, I think at least a mention of the visits throughout the years would be useful, as well as a more indepth look at the flora and fauna. A separate section on the politics of the island may also be something to consider, where you focus on its shifts from Spanish, to English, to American, to English and what have you. That said, that may fit better in the history section. You've clearly already plummed Google Books, but there's plenty more out there; for instance, a quick Google search threw up this and this, both of which look like they would have a lot to add (if you're unable to access the likes of JSTOR, I can help you out there). This is a very interesting topic (historically, geographically, biologically, politically... I could go on), and you're very much getting there, but I think it needs some more work yet. I hope this has been helpful- feel free to contact me on my talk page or reply here with any queries. J Milburn (talk) 12:04, 6 July 2011 (UTC) Thanks for taking the time to review the article. I will assess the issues you pointed out during the next few days, I will also check other available sources to expand the article as much as I can.--GDuwenTell me! 16:46, 6 July 2011 (UTC) I have made progress in some of your concerns, I will do further reading of sources to complete the article with more information and I will be expanding the article during the following days.--GDuwenTell me! 22:00, 10 July 2011 (UTC) I expanded the article a bit and I tried to assess your concerns: I made a more porper introduction to the lagoon and added a map that details the name of each islet. The flora section is not likely to be expanded further, since the atoll has not a large variety of vegetation, only two kind of plants, some grass and the rest is algae. The fauna section was expanded, I listed some of the poisonous fish species that inhabit the lagoon as well as sharks. I expanded details on bird life and added the species of lizard. I added under the History section details about the sovereignty of the UK over the island through the years. I linked the page numbers of the sources available in Google Books. I know that the article needs work, so I'll wait for further issues to be solved.--GDuwenTell me! 22:58, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Fantastic! I suspect more improvements could be made, so I'll give it another good look through. J Milburn (talk) 23:04, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Second read through Ok, here goes- The fact the lead image and the map are oriented differently is a little confusing. Perhaps rotate the lead image, and a compass would be useful. I Have rotated the image and I added a compass on it.--GDuwenTell me! 01:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC) The geography section's use of short sentences makes it difficult to read- there isn't much flow right now. Does it look better now?--GDuwenTell me! 01:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC) "Additionally, there are two species of coralline algae, and Porolithon onkodes" Porolithon onkodes is a species of coralline algae; what's the other? I added the other species of algae.--GDuwenTell me! 01:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC) I'm sorry, I'm not a massive fan of the gallery- too many images. Maybe three or four in a centralised gallery would work, but galleries are best avoided. I only left four pics in the gallery. I know that galleries are best avoided, but I think that for this article is necessary because Ducie is known mostly for the species of birds that inhabit it, and it is relevant to illustrate the article with more than one picture of a bird.--GDuwenTell me! 01:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC) I'm still thinking the fauna sections could be expanded. The details about the lizards are great, but I'm interested to know what other birds there are. I detailed the bird species for each family.--GDuwenTell me! 01:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC) Cool. We're still left with a good list, followed by "It is home to about five thousand pairs of Fairy Terns and between a hundred and a thousand Red-tailed Tropicbirds" from a different source- why were they not mentioned in the first source? Are they basing their assessments off something different? J Milburn (talk) 09:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC) Again, I'd be interested about the relationship of the Pittcairn natives to the island. Perhaps a mention of the fact they knew of the island would belong at the very start of the history section. "The first registered landing in Ducie" What does that mean? I fixed that, I meant that the first landing ever recorded was made by Edwards.--GDuwenTell me! 01:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC) Presumably Acadia Islet was named after the ship? Do we know how the other islets were named? I added the origin of the name of the other islets.--GDuwenTell me! 01:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC) I'm interested in the islands history in the 20th/21st centuries. Clearly, it has been visited a good few times, but you don't mention that. How frequent are visits today? You mention in the lead that "Due to its inaccessibility and the distance to Pitcairn Island, Ducie is rarely visited." but this is never backed up in the prose. "the Pitcairn island" the Pitcairn Ilands? Or was that deliberate? Pitcairn is the island were Adamstown, the capital is located. Pitcairn, Oeno, Henderson and Ducie are the Pitcairn Islands.--GDuwenTell me! 01:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC) The first para of the political situation section is not so clear- perhaps also it could be titled "Sovereignty"? How sure are we about the reliability of BritLink and OceanDots? I will check if I can find any other ref to replace them.--GDuwenTell me! 01:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC) I've made a number of fixes, and will continue to help out where I can. J Milburn (talk) 23:51, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Assessment I have work on the requests that you made: I made modifications in the Birds section The relationship between the Pitcairners and Ducie was clarified in the history section, in the part that describes the accession of Ducie to the Pitcarins in 1902. I have included the major expeditions that visited the island during the 20 century, and the few landings on the island per year. I removed BritLink and OceanDots and replaced them by reliable sources. Notes: Although the use of galleries is discouraged, I think its important for the section regarding birds, due that the feature that makes the atoll important. I have rotated the image of the infobox and added a compass to identify the orientation. The image is not updated on the infobox, I assume that this is caused by the thumbnail generation errors that currently affect Wikimedia Commons.--GDuwenTell me! 18:35, 17 July 2011 (UTC) Great, that's good to see. The references list is looking a lot stronger now. I'd like to give the article another proper look through before I make a call about where to go from here, so I will get back to you ASAP, hopefully tonight. J Milburn (talk) 18:49, 17 July 2011 (UTC) Third read through This has taken a while, but I think it's worth getting it right. The article's looking far better than it did before it came to GAC. "With nearly 90% of the total population of Murphy's Petrels, also in Ducie nest an important number of Red-tailed Tropicbirds and Fairy Terns, that make around 1% of the total population of both species in the world." Clumsy phrasing Para 2 of geography is important information, but it's a little technical right now. "that can be accessed from the largest one, Acadia, when the tide is low." By this, do you mean that you can walk between them at low tide? You mention that the maximum elevation is 13 feet, but then, lower, mention one of the islets reaching 15 feet. "depth of 53 feet." Can we have that in metric too? Could you please check your source about the small number of vascular plants, and make sure what I've written is correct? The phrasing you used did not make sense "death coral" What is this? "Five of the species are local, the Hemitaurichthys multispinosus, Sargocentron megalops, Ammodytoides leptus, and Enneapterygius ornatus." Do you mean that they are only found on Ducie? If so, that's pretty significant "missing the rest of the islands that followed the parallel, where he would eventually have found the mutineers of the Bounty." Not clear what this means "the National Geographic Society-Oceanic Institute Expedition to Southeast Oceania, between" Why italics? "the Smithsonian Institution in 1975," That's not the name of the expedition "Major expeditions that arrived to the island to record its biota include the Whitney South Seas Expedition in 1922, the National Geographic Society-Oceanic Institute Expedition to Southeast Oceania, between 1970 and 1971;[38] the Smithsonian Institution in 1975,[27] in 1987 a new expedition of the Smithsonian,[11] as well as one by Raleigh International,[38] the Sir Peter Scott commemorative expedition, between 1990 and 1991;[11] and the Pitcairn Scientific Expedition between 1991 and 1992" Very helpful, but the sentence is rather long and unwieldy "In 1867 Ducie was claimed by the United States under the Guano Islands Act, which established that an uninhabited territory with guano deposits could be claimed as a US possession, so long as it was unclaimed by any other country.[41] Despite the claims, neither the United States nor the United Kingdom considered that the mere discovery of an island was the only requirement to claiming sovereignty over a territory, and ultimately, the United States did not assert its sovereignty over most of the claims." The US was not trying to use mere discovery as evidence of ownership. This is confusing. "Under the 1893 Pacific Order-in-Council, Pitcairn Island was ruled by the High Commissioner of West Pacific in Fiji. On 19 December 1902 Captain G. F. Jones, under the commission of R. T. Simmons, the British Consul in Tahiti, visited the nearby islands in company with Pitcairners and annexed them to the United Kingdom,[43] Following the same procedure, Ducie was annexed in 1903," First, there's some confusion with sentences here (comma followed by uppercase) but, secondly, was Ducie annexed under the same "expedition", as it were? "R. T. Simmons stated in his dispatch to the Foreign Office that the Pitcairners assured him that the islands had always been considered a dependency of Pitcairn, and that they had been frequently visited by the islanders in the past. This claim is questionable given the distance between Pitcairn Island and Henderson Island, and that the islanders did not possess a suitable vessel to navigate the distance between the two. It was also doubtful that they had ever visited Ducie.[31]" Interesting and important, but hard to follow. Am I right in thinking that the second sentence is not actually related to Ducie? Henderson Island, in the directional box at the bottom, is a dablink. I've got to say that I think that should be removed- it's a little cluttery. Also, if Henderson is the closest island, why isn't that mentioned in the geography section? I reckon all the information there could meaningfully be used to expand the paragraph detailing where Ducie is located. "1991-92 Pitcairn Scientific Expedition" (in the flora section) why italics? There are some issues with the reference formatting too, but I'll come back to that. Also, I've done some further copyediting. J Milburn (talk) 13:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC) I have worked on the new list. About the mere discovery of a territory as evidence of ownership, the source explains that both the U.S and the UK have claimed sovereignty of many different territories during the XIX century under different documents, such as the Guano Islands Act. Despite of this, the sovereignty of the territories declared by such acts was rejected by both countries (The U.S rejected British claims, and the Brits rejected the U.S claims). Frequently, formal ceremonies of annexation were considered the proper way to declare the ownership. Could you list the problems with the references?--GDuwenTell me! 17:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC) Ok, here are some notes on the references (and one other thing to be getting on with- I'll be back with another look through the prose in time) You note that there are 5 Pittcairn fish found in the lagoon, yet only list four species? I have added the fifth.--GDuwenTell me! 19:57, 31 July 2011 (UTC) Why the italics on "^ "Ducie Island". Pitcairn Islands Study Center. Pacific Union College. Retrieved 3 July 2011."? Again "^ a b c d "History of Government and Laws, Part 15". Pitcairn Islands Study Center. Pacific Union College. Retrieved 10 July 2011." Again ""The Wetlands: Ducie Atoll". Wetlands International. Pacific Union College. Retrieved July 17, 2011."? Are we certain these three are reliable? The Cite web template automatically italicizes the texts under the "work=" field. I think that the source is reliable, the information provided is referenced from reliable sources as you can see here--GDuwenTell me! 19:57, 31 July 2011 (UTC) This edit should give you an idea of what I meant by formatting problems. Some still exist- the main bibliography is not in alphabetical order and there are typing errors ("VGuide to standard floras", "University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 9780824814380.</ref>", etc) and even now I'm seeing bits I missed I have ordered alphabetically the authors.--GDuwenTell me! 21:19, 1 August 2011 (UTC) Is the David Stanley book self-published? A better way to distinguish the two editions in the refs would be to mention the year- that said, why are you citing two editions anyway? I added the publishing company and deleted the "extra" edition.--GDuwenTell me! 21:19, 1 August 2011 (UTC) In the refs, I'd recommend using sentence case for article titles, but following Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) for book titles, as per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Capitalization Done.--GDuwenTell me! 21:19, 1 August 2011 (UTC) "New Zealand Journal of Zoology. 20. The Royal Society of New Zealand. July 22, 1993." Article title? Author(s)? Page number(s)? Added.--GDuwenTell me! 21:19, 1 August 2011 (UTC) That should give you some bits to get on with. J Milburn (talk) 18:31, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Fourth read through

Sorry, this is turning into a heck of a review, but there are still problems.

• Para 2 of "geography" is still looking over technical. "the Oeno alienation" What's this? "the fracture zone FZ2"? "ternary reorientation"? "that deviated 15º after" What are you referring to? "the motion of the Pacific Plate." What motion?
• Still the inconsistency regarding the highest point on the island
• Repeating that the islets border the lagoon is surely unnecessary?
• "The islet has the form of a horseshoe" doesn't look like it on the map- or are you meaning vertically?
• "most of them are common in southeastern Oceania, Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and some in Easter Island." That's a weird claim- could you check your source?
• In places the writing is still very choppy... Lots of comma splices in the history section.
• I think "grounded" is probably a better word than "wrecked" for what happened to the mail ship. If it was genuinely wrecked, I doubt they would try to refloat it- or am I wrong?
• "The original name given by the natives of Pitcairn to the island was Fenua-manu, the 'island of birds'.[34]" That same sentence... It's not just tacked on to the end of an unrelated section
• "the Pitcairn Scientific Expedition between" Why italics?
• Para 1 of "Sovereignty" still doesn't read well- non-sequiturs
• More comma splices

I'm starting to think that I'm getting too involved in the prose here- I think a second opinion will be needed for this article. It's mostly coming together, but I still worry about the prose. J Milburn (talk) 20:22, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I did some modifications to the formation of the island in order to be written in a less technical fashion. I also took care of the minor issues that you have listed. About the prose, comma splices and such, I have listed the article in The Guild of Copy Editors to get some extra help.--GDuwenTell me! 23:11, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Just noting that, while you changed the information about the maximum elevation, the information is still cited to the old source, meaning the information is not included in the source to which it is apparently cited. I have made fixes for similar issues in the article- it's something you really should be aware of. I'm wondering about how to proceed, here. I think work is still required, and I think further eyes would be a benefit. I am not sure whether this should be placed on hold while we wait for someone else to look over the article, whether this review should be closed so more work (perhaps a peer review?) can be done in preparation for a future nomination, or whether we should request a second opinion- someone else to move through the article and pick up anything I've missed. J Milburn (talk) 23:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that the best option here is to put the article on hold, in order that I can do some more work checking references and so. As you said, a review by another user in addition to yours would also help.--GDuwenTell me! 15:52, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Closing

I've had a think on this. The article review has already gone on far longer than normal, and somewhat longer than the reviews are meant to last. I think we both accept that copyediting and source checking need to take place, and so, while this article is looking far better than it was (and is rounding out into a strong article on an important subject), it's still that little bit off GA status. As such, I'm closing this review- the article has not passed. I most certainly do not want to say that the article has "failed", as it has improved and will be, I hope, soon ready for a renomination, and for a new set of eyes to work with you on any necessary improvements. So, what needs to be done now-

1. Fact checking. You need to make sure that the sources say what you say they do. I've corrected this at least once, and spotted others.
2. Copyediting. I've been copyediting as I've gone, but I worry the prose still isn't stellar. I also don't pretend to be the authority on professional writing.
3. Take a look through the points I raised above, and see if you've missed anything, or if there's anywhere you could improve.
4. After this, renominate, and wait for another reviewer. I'll be available on my talk page if I can be of any help before or during any future reviews.

Good luck. You've taken on an interesting article, here- an article that could potentially go all the way. It's an article worth getting right, and I hope it gets there. J Milburn (talk) 10:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The nominator has requested that I give a 2nd opinion here. J Milburn, you can either close this review as not passing, and I'll immediately open a new GA2 review... or I can just take over the current review, whichever you prefer. I'll be sure to read all your concerns either way. I hope to do this review on Monday. – Quadell ^(talk) 16:18, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I thought I had already closed it. I believe that there are some other bits that need to be done before another review is forthcoming (see my closing thoughts above). For the sake of neatness, I think it best to close this review now; I would not feel comfortable being the judge of the article at this stage. You can offer your review of the article when editors feel it is ready to be renominated, or, if you want to go ahead and review this straight away, and GDuwen is happy to do that, go for it- that way, I think you'd be a little more likely to end up needing to review and rereview several times, as I did, but it could work. In any case, I'll try to stick around and offer any help I can. J Milburn (talk) 17:34, 14 August 2011 (UTC)