Wikipedia:Featured and good topic candidates/Failed log/December 2009

Costa Rican monkey species

Costa Rican monkey species

5 articles

Central American Squirrel Monkey

Geoffroy's Spider Monkey

Mantled Howler

White-headed Capuchin

I am nominating this for a good topic because I believe it meets the criteria. There are currently 4 recognized Costa Rican monkey species so the lead list has been peer reviewed. The species articles for all 4 species are GAs. Rlendog (talk) 21:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

It would be better to harmonize the structures a bit, placing "Taxonomy" consistently at the top (or bottom, if you prefer), using either "Physical description" or "Description", but not both, and using one of "Conservation", "Status", or "Conservation status". Otherwise, this'll be good to go. Ucucha 22:56, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose the top article can be easily restructured to get through GAN; also, the "List" in the title is useless since the article is not actually a list. Nergaal (talk) 23:03, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I was thinking of the lead article as a list, but there are not enough species to qualify for FL. But I realize the lead is quite long relative to the list itself; that was a comment that cam eup at PR as well. Do you have any suggestions how to restructure the lead article so it can go through GAN? Rlendog (talk) 01:51, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose You've got great articles, but I agree with the above. As an easy task, you need to be consistent throughout all the articles for section order and naming. However, I'm surprised that List of Costa Rican monkey species is a separate list at all; it's extremely short and would not even qualify for WP:FL. It is definitely a list, just one with a very long lead and a very short table. This is almost entirely redundant to List of Central American monkey species and I strongly suggest merging this (and the redundant List of Panamanian monkey species) there. With a little effort you could have an even greater Good Topic. Reywas92^Talk 01:38, 22 November 2009 (UTC) And I would be happy to help with a merge. Reywas92^Talk 01:40, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Although there is some overlap between the Costa Rica, Panama and Central American monkey lists, I don't think merging is appropriate even though there is obviously some overlap. Yhe country-specific lists deal with the monkeys specifically as they occur in those countries where watching monkeys is a popular tourist attraction, and so there is interest in the specific monkeys in those countries. The fact that seeing monkeys in Costa Rica is a popular attraction is one of the reasons I think this would be a good candidate for a good topic. At some point I would like to get this and the Panama monkeys to good topics and then perhaps make them subtopics within a Central American good topic. But that is probably a long way off since there is currently not enough information available on many of the species to get them to GAs. Also, even the Central American list is not long enough for WP:FL. In the meantime I will address the structuring issues and see if I can get the lead article to GA instead of a list, since I think the Costa Rican monkeys warrant their own summary article, even if it is not a list. But I am not sure what else I can do. Rlendog (talk) 02:01, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Well only about three or four sentences truly Costa-Rica specific are in the list, and it seems everything else overlaps. Even the footnotes and references are almost exactly the same. The three pages have a total of 13 paragraphs, and the unique info could cover only 5. Compare this similar info spread over three articles compared to a more concise and reader-friendly combined list in this sample, which is only 14kb and could be expanded. With the great job you've done so far, I know you can make a bigger, better GA, and this would make a great project for the WP:WIKICUP. Reywas92^Talk 02:34, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
      • Thank you for your comments. I am more than happy to improve on the Central America list, and possibly get it to FL (per the comment below). Although I don't think that a Central American monkey topic will be able to get to GT or FT anytime soon, since there just isn't much info available on many of the species. I can see some slim hope of finding enough information on the Guatemalan Black Howler and Geoffroy's Tamarin to get them to GA. But I don't think much more information exists than what is in the existing start/stub class articles on Panamanian Night Monkey, Coiba Island Howler and Black-headed Spider Monkey, since the first is hard to study due to being nocturnal, and the latter two don't seem to have been studied much either (and to the extent they have, taxonomic debates attribute some of the data to other species). Rlendog (talk) 03:12, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
        • If some articles are indeed small, because there isn't enough info on them, you could merge them into the main list. Nergaal (talk) 07:45, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
          • Hmm I think it might be okay to do a "Costa Rican monkey species" topic with List of Central American monkey species as the main article - rst20xx (talk) 12:03, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
            • No, no species should be merged into a regional list; they deserve their own article. I actually doubt that you won't be able to get these other articles to GA, given that the even more poorly known Pseudoryzomys is also a GA and Lundomys is now nearly an FA.
            • I think you could actually write a decent separate article on Monkeys of Costa Rica, including specific information on when the monkeys were first discovered in CR and what the government does to protect them, and about tourism in relation to the monkeys, among other things. Ucucha 14:46, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
              • I agree that the lists should not be merged, since Costa Rica and Panama are independent countries, and so lists of their fauna separate from any regional lists are appropriate. It also seems that Costa Rican monkeys and Panamanian monkeys should be appropriate topics, for the same reasons. It is true that the Costa Rican monkeys are a subset of Central American monkeys, but Central American monkeys is if anything less rigorous, since it begs the question of where Central America ends (i.e., is part of Mexico included? Is part of Panama excluded?) and Central American monkeys are themselves a subset of New World Monkeys, which are a subset of the [[[edit]Haplorrhini]], which are a subset of Primates, etc. But if List of Central American monkey species can serve as a main article for a Costa Rican monkey topic, and if they have relaxed the rigidness of the 10 element criteria (per the comment below) I can work to get that to FL and then use that as the main article here. Eventually it would be great to make the Costa Rican monkey topic a subtopic within a broader Central American monkey topic, but I am not sure that could be done now (although Ucucha gives me hope, though the taxonomic issues around two of the species - esp. Coiba Island Howler - make for a different challenge in finding info than the Oryzomyini, since very little data exists independent of the Mantled Howler, to which it is often ascribed, and similar issues to a somewhat lesser extent exist with the spider monkey species). Rlendog (talk) 02:20, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - per Reywas92, I think the lists should be merged, and a larger topic on Central American monkeys created. The three lists have a combined size of 37k, which is a very reasonable size for a single list, so even if the three are merged, sections specific to Costa Rica and Panama could be kept within the end result, with the tables simply being combined. Further, the "10 item rule" is no longer as strict as it once was at FLC, so I wouldn't be surprised if List of Central American monkey species could pass FLC, despite only having 9 items. Sorry - rst20xx (talk) 02:16, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I didn't realize that they loosened the 10 item rule at FLC. My recent experience at FLC seems to indicate that the rules have gotten tighter, albeit on issues such as ALT text and not on list size. I'd love to get the Central American monkey list to FL, independent of any GT/FT issues. Rlendog (talk) 03:12, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment I like the idea of the topic, but I think the lead article could make it through GAN. It is more of an article than a list. -- EA Swyer ^Talk _{Contributions} 18:53, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

• Close with no consensus to promote - rst20xx (talk) 20:20, 9 December 2009 (UTC)