Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lemurs of Madagascar (book)/archive1

Lemurs of Madagascar (book)

Featured article candidates/Lemurs of Madagascar (book)/archive1

Featured article review/Lemurs of Madagascar (book)/archive1

Notified: Maky (page creator/nominator; formerly "VisionHolder"), Primates, Madagascar

"Bloated article; uses the [Mittermeier] book that is the subject of article 44 times, out of about the 60 references given. Contains excessive detail and primary sourcing."

— Possibly (talk · contribs), May 2021 (links added for context by yours truly)

Cleanup-tag note says it all. Original article creator/FA nominator, Maky (talk · contribs), has been on WP in highly reduced capacity since late 2015.

P.S. Can't believe it's been 17 years and change since I last sent a page for review... Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 07:58, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If folks think it merits keeping in some form, I'd be happy to take a pass at cutting it down -- way down. Much of it reads as puffery, and a lot of it redundant. I think there's some factual information that would be worth keeping, though.

I'm not in the habit of gutting a page like I would want to do with this one, so just putting that out there. Monkeywire (talk) 19:44, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Monkeywire: I'd support someone going through and cutting down the prose: there is too much puffery, and the "Overview" section should probably be renamed to "Background" and refocused. Z1720 (talk) 02:28, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I took a stab at editing. (It's so much easier to cut than to write!). Apologies in advance for any errors, but I think it's in better shape than it was before. Monkeywire (talk) 16:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just adding for the record that I think this is worth keeping now that it's not so bloated Monkeywire (talk) 18:39, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Slgrandson: Do the edits made address your concerns? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:05, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Nikkimaria: Better off. (Attempting to reach @Maky so that we can remind him of the progress, but an immediate reply is hardly guaranteed as he last edited in April.) --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 16:46, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I see an unsourced paragraph in "Editions". I also think the "Reception" section could be expanded upon, considering that several reviews are already used as inline citations. Z1720 (talk) 03:05, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment @Slgrandson: I've gone ahead and undone Monkeywire's changes while performing a very substantial but much more surgical cutdown of the article. It was bloated beyond belief, but I believe Monkeywire's decision to relegate the entire 'Reception' section to a paragraph and the entire summary/contents to a bullet pointed list of chapters dramatically hurt the article's comprehensiveness and turned it into something more akin to a C-class article (through no fault of their own; there really was so much extraneous stuff there). Some highlights of the changes I've made include:

Word count and character count in the prose are both down a smidge over 28% (~21,050 characters down to ~15,100 and ~3,310 words down to ~2,240).
I believe I have done this while retaining all the points which were present when this article was first reviewed.
I do not believe this article could now be meaningfully reduced further without losing relevant, useful information.
The brick wall of listed authors which made the 'Overview' section effectively unreadable has been moved into three explanatory footnotes – one for each edition. I believe this information about the authors is highly relevant and should remain but that it undeniably cannot remain in the prose.
The descriptions of the appendices have been completely stripped out, as they were effectively obvious by the appendix titles alone.
The mention of a Lemur News announcement has been removed owing to the fact that a sales pitch written by the book's authors does not constitute 'Reception'.
The awkward, dangling lead paragraph of the 'Content' section about the front and back covers has been neatly folded into an already-existing sentence, so the section now starts with the "Introduction".
The block quote from the "Introduction" section has been shortened and naturally folded into the sentence prior to where it originally was.
Very obvious tangents such as how many lemurs a reviewer had spotted as well as tautologies such as (paraphrased) "this field guide helps identify lemurs in the field" have been taken out.
Statements that could be expressed in substantially fewer words without loss of clarity have been amended.
Not relevant to bloat per se, but I revised the summary of Lisa Gould's review to – I think – better reflect what she wrote.

My vote in the article's current state is to Keep the featured article status, as I believe it is now an excellent reference for this book's publication history, contents, reception, and impact on primatology. I tried to be descriptive with my edit summaries, so please feel free to peruse and see if you approve of the changes I've made. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 22:02, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not extremely familiar with FA standards, but I think the improvements above are very good and I would vote to maintain the status as a FA. I can't point out any problems. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:40, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Slgrandson: assuming that Maky is not going to respond, what are your thoughts on the article's status? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:54, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: Given it's been a month and a half since you asked that, nearly two months since I cleaned this up, and over three months since it started, would it be reasonable to close this discussion? I believe I've more than sufficiently addressed the completely valid concern brought up by Slgrandson here. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 03:10, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With or without further input from Slgrandson, we'll need additional viewpoints in order to arrive at consensus whether your changes satisfy the FA criteria. You could try posting a neutral message at a broader WikiProject like Biology or Books to see if anyone is able to weigh in. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:16, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

For Ref. 57, I count 22 species and 29 subspecies, not 20 species. At least that's what I gathered from the contents table, but I may be wrong. Could you also include page numbers for it? Sgubaldo (talk) 07:48, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in agreement that we count 29 subspecies. I also count 22 species in the contents, so I'm curious what happened here. Taking a look at pages 40–43, it seems there are 22 extant species of lemur listed. Likewise, it lists 29 extant subspecies. I'm going to 1) use sfn for an exact set of pages, 2) correct the species number, and 3) specify that it's only extant, as the book specifies quite a few more extinct species (which I feel like people always discount for some reason). TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 03:51, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Prose seems fine, so I'm at a Keep without FARC. Sgubaldo (talk) 22:40, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]