Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Flocke

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 User:SandyGeorgia 00:06, 6 October 2008 [1].

Flocke[edit]

Nominator(s): María (habla conmigo)

In memory of the late Thomas Dörflein, the tireless zookeeper who cared for Knut, here is another German polar bear cub for consideration. It was a DYK back in May and received GA-status in July. Flocke is sadly less noteworthy than Knut, since she is cuteness personified 2.0, but I believe the article is fairly comprehensive and fulfills the FA criteria. I will endeavor to respond to comments as quickly as possible. Thank you! María (habla conmigo) 13:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Sources look good; links check out with the link checker tool. –Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 15:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Images; All the free images are fine, and with so many of them, is Image:FlockeLogo.gif really necessary? The article stating "An official logo was subsequently released by the zoo" is fine, I think; the important element is that they made a logo, not the exact design of the logo (which is all the image shows). I don't think it significantly assists reader understanding. Giggy (talk) 00:00, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Aw, I was afraid of this. I'll be sad to see it go, but I've removed it as you make a good case. María (habla conmigo) 01:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed Knut (polar bear) contains audio, which shows how to pronounce the polar bear's name. Could the same be done for this article?

I'd love to include something similar, but I have no idea how to create such a thing. Would someone be willing to lend their expertise? María (habla conmigo) 01:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I poked MacGyverMagic, who made the original one. The first German speaker that comes to mind apart from him is David Fuchs, if MGM is no longer around. Giggy (talk) 01:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know how to pronounce her name, so that's not the problem. I'm just slightly technologically disinclined, meaning that creating sound files goes right over my head. Would an IPA pronunciation note help in case someone cannot create an audio? María (habla conmigo) 02:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that'd be good in the meantime. Giggy (talk) 03:00, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, added. I think it's correctly written out. María (habla conmigo) 03:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I formatted the dates to dmy since the first one I saw was formatted like that. Let me know if you'd prefer them as mdy.

Thanks! I wanted to keep it in the European style since this is a German-related article, but I missed the caption. Nice catch.

I can't really put my finger on it exactly, but I found the lead's first paragraph awkward, and it didn't really feel like it was talking about the most pertinent aspects of the topic. If I can think of something more specific to say I'll come back here and do so.

Please do; I'll try to clean it up a little and we'll see if we can meet in the middle.

"At approximately the same time, another Nuremberg female polar bear, Vilma, gave birth to what was thought to be two cubs; because zookeepers decided not to disturb the animals, enforcing a strict non-interference policy, it is not known exactly how many cubs were born to Vilma" - you could definitely trim off the last two words, as it's clear what you're referring to.

Done.

Ref 3 needs a publisher.

Added.

Giggy (talk) 00:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! If there's anything else, let me know. María (habla conmigo) 01:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Giggy (talk) 10:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support (ec) After a read-through of this article, I found very little to fault. The article is very well-written, and is comprehensive as far as I can tell. Just one comment: in the sentence, At approximately the same time, another Nuremberg female polar bear, Vilma, gave birth to what was thought to be two cubs; because zookeepers decided not to disturb the animals, enforcing a strict non-interference policy, it is not known exactly how many cubs were born to Vilma., the "to Vilma" bit is redundant. Good work overall. –Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 00:16, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Giggy made the same suggestion above, so great minds think alike? Already fixed. :) Thanks for commenting! María (habla conmigo) 01:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note I've removed the forced thumb sizes which override user preferences (WP:IUP) jimfbleak (talk) 05:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since MOS:IMAGE says that image sizes can be forced if they "need more than the default size", I think that two images (Image:Polar bear Flocke Aquapark Tiergarten Nuremberg DE.jpg in the lead and Image:Media circus in the beginning Polar bear Flocke Aquapark Tiergarten Nuremberg DE.jpg) should remain resized. Lead images are "often resized to about 300px" (it was 250px before your edit) in order to better recognize the subject matter, and at 180px the lead image looks like a throwaway. In the case of the second image, Flocke is completely indistinguishable; there's an enclosure with a small white speck that might be a polar bear cub, which is not satisfactory. Per the guideline, image sizes may be forced if "a small region is relevant, but cropping to that region would reduce the coherence of the image". I've resized these two images based on my understanding of this guideline, but let me know if I'm incorrect. María (habla conmigo) 12:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's reasonable explanation, and I'm happy with the current image sizes. I shan't vote simply because I'll be away for much of October. jimfbleak (talk) 19:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support, with request

Do you think you can expand this statement: The zoo quickly faced harsh criticism throughout Germany and from the worldwide media for seemingly allowing the death of the cubs. to give examples of how pervasive and severe this criticism was? It may be the English translation, but "Why Won't Anyone Save the Cute Baby Knuts in Nuremberg Zoo?" doesn't seem scathing or worthy to be placed in a high caliber newspaper.
Otherwise, support. Interesting read. Grisly about the cub-eating. Points taken off for adorability, but added for comprehensiveness ;) --Moni3 (talk) 16:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Points taken off for adorability? I would have thought that would receive bonus points, or at least a few floating pink hearts and happy sighs. I added a quote and a little more detail about the criticism that was thrown at the zoo. As for the "Baby Knuts" quote, I moved it up a bit to hopefully give it some needed context. I don't believe it was meant to be scathing, since it happened before the announcement that the cubs were goners, and Bild isn't exactly a "high caliber" paper anyway. It's cheap and trashy, but quite popular; that makes it noteworthy enough to mention, I think. Thanks for the comments, as always, Moni. María (habla conmigo) 17:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want it thought that I supported from wanting to cuddle the article, and speak to it in high-pitched tones often heard and understood only by dolphins. We're all hard-nosed FAC reviewers here, ahem. Like that otters holding hands and swimming picture should be featured, like, every single day. --Moni3 (talk) 18:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I shall create Kawaii-pedia, where cuteness reigns 24/7. Screenings on the mainpage will consist of repeated viewings of She and Her Cat and YouTube videos of little hamsters eating Cheerios and sneezing baby pandas. Oh, and lolcats will be mandatory in every FAC discussion. Lulz. María (habla conmigo) 18:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh my God. Image:Sea_otters_holding_hands.jpg is so cute I threw up on myself a little bit. Damn all you faceless powers! Feature it! --Moni3 (talk) 19:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'~~Oppose~~ Tony (talk) 14:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)'—not well-written enough. Here are random examples of why:[reply]
Please remove "also" from the lead.

Removed.

"Evidently" is POV, believe it or not. If there's evidence, just make the bold statement in the lead and cite it when given in a more detailed context below.

At the time there was no concrete proof that the cubs were eaten: one day they were there, the next they weren't. There was no news released if their bodies had been found, since keepers couldn't get into the bear's cave at the time and the media (like usual) quickly moved on and didn't follow up. So, news reports at the time stated that she "apparently" or "evidently" ate the cubs. It's commonly accepted that she did, but again, I didn't want to be bold without proof of evidence. Changed to "reportedly", is that better?

Possibly "various" is not needed. What does it add?

Removed.

Why is "German" linked? Who on earth is going to interrupt their reading in ignorance of what it means? Why is a large article on the German language relevant to this article?

I thought it was fairly common practice, but it's been removed.

I see "United Nations" linked a lot. Do we really need it?

It was linked only twice; once in the lead and once in the corresponding section. I removed the second link.

"in order to encourage"—spot the two redundant words. Tony (talk) 13:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removed "in order". Will work on the rest. María (habla conmigo) 13:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I made additional changes to the prose, and have notified Tony. Thanks! María (habla conmigo) 14:13, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I'm going to have a look at this article tomorrow or Saturday and see if I can help with the prose (if it still needs work). Scartol • Tok 02:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delay; I've done a copyedit, although it appears that Tony already removed his objection. Hope it helped anyway. Scartol • Tok 20:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Excellent work! Prose is polished, and article is to the point. Of course, this can't replace Knut in our hearts... ;) —Ceran thor [Formerly LordSunday] 00:34, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Oppose~~. I'm afraid this article fails criteria 1.b, comprehensiveness. While the text goes into detail to explain the cub's fame, it entirely neglects the fact that Flocke actually turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment for the Nuernberg Zoo. I don't know to what extent this was reported in English language media, so I can only make my point by providing examples with German news stories: The zoo expected up to 20,000 visitors per day, even built a 500-person viewing platform [2], but on the morning the zoo first displayed Flocke, only two dozen people showed up, overall about 2,000 came to see the cub on each of its first two days of display, way below the zoo's expectations [3]. The zoo blamed bad weather and the first weekend saw a considerable increase with 13,000 visitors, but even that remained below expectations [4]. In September, a spokeswoman for the zoo said Flocke helped the zoo to reach its one million's visitor two months earlier than the previous year, but the onrush to see the cub was not as big as they hoped for [5]. Jaqu (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely agree that more can be added about expectations vs. deliverance. It's hard for me to judge what the sources say because I don't speak German and Google Translate can only get me so far; I also don't think the English sources have addressed these issues. Nonetheless, I've tried to address your concerns in these edits, using a couple of your provided sources (thanks!). What do you think? María (habla conmigo) 15:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's definitely an improvement, though I'm not sure it's factually accurate to claim they expected 20,000 visitors the very first day - I think that's more like the peak number they expected/hoped for. One more thing that might be worth including is the fact that Flocke was only displayed in short intervals during the first week (9 to 11 am, and 1 to 4 pm), and has had a siesta until very recently [6]. Only starting on 16 Sep, Flocke spent the whole day in her outdoor enclosure, as stated here in this press release by the city of Nuremberg [7]. In that, they also give Flocke's current weight (60 kg) and her current size (130 cm standing up) and state that they expect her to still triple her weight, which possible could also be mentioned in the text. Jaqu (talk) 13:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the suggestions! I've added some new info, which can be seen here. :) María (habla conmigo) 18:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Although I'm generally wary of short articles, I feel that the comprehensive research done here has made the quality as high as it will be in the near future. Two comments: The sentence During the first week, Flocke was displayed for short intervals, but attendance by zoo patrons was initially lower than expected. feels unfinished. Is there a cause/effect relationship between the length of the display intervals and attendance? If so, maybe we need another clause at the end: "...as a result, officials increased her visibility to..." or some such.

Gah, I smooshed the wrong two sentences together. It now reads: "During the first week, Flocke was displayed for short intervals with breaks at midday. Expecting a peak of 20,000 visitors, the zoo built a viewing platform, capable of holding 500 people at a time, in front of the enclosure, but attendance by zoo patrons was initially lower than expected."

Also, in the section called Current life and future (which maybe should be slightly renamed, since it doesn't seem to have much about the bear's future?), do we still need the following sentence? Although ticket sales increased due to Flocke's popularity, the numbers did not match high expectations. Seems like it's been addressed earlier. (Perhaps this is residue from the additions mentioned earlier here in the FAC?) Scartol • Tok 20:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added it because of the suggestions above, yes, but I'm not sure if it's completely redundant; the bit I quoted above addresses the initial attendance let down, but the second bit should address attendance expectations for the entire year. I've tried to reword it to reflect this. Thanks so much for the copy-edits and support! You're a gem as usual. María (habla conmigo) 00:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.