Talk:Copper shark

"found in subtropical seas and oceans"
A question for anyone watching the article - how accurate is this statement? For example copper sharks (locally known as bronze whalers) have very recently been spotted, and are spotted regularly, off the coast of Adelaide in Gulf St Vincent, which is an inlet of the Southern Ocean - hardly an example of a subtropical body of water. 202.124.89.27 (talk) 10:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

is "Copper Shark" the best name for this article?
I've never heard this terminology, ever, for the Bronze Whaler shark. In all the science literature I've read since a child, in talking to many Australian friends of mine that all call in the Bronze Whaler, to BBC documentaries only a couple of years old referring to the species as Bronze Whaler, I can't believe "Copper shark" is the more common name. HammerFilmFan (talk) 03:14, 4 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I've seen "copper shark" used by plenty of published sources. It's also used by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and is listed as the primary common name in FishBase, which is generally what we use to determine fish article titles here. -- Yzx (talk) 03:48, 4 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Ok, but in common talk as a sailor for many years (before retiring from the USN) and fellow fisherman etc., I've never heard them referred to in this way. Oh, well, I prostrate myself before the UN - not.  HammerFilmFan (talk) 17:00, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * In Australia, it is commonly called a Bronze Whaler. This is also the primary name in the US as well, if we believe Shark Research Institute. Badja (talk) 09:39, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Recent additions
I've reverted most of the recent additions to the article again, and it seems a more detailed explanation may be in order. -- Yzx (talk) 18:38, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * there should not be any citations in the intro, the intro is a summary of the rest of the article
 * most references don't need quotations, and large-scale copypaste from the source definitely should not be done
 * the intro is a summary, and specific examples of attacks don't need to be in it
 * " but the species places sixth in the number of attacks on humans" -- this implies that this is the sixth-most dangerous shark, which is misleading. Outside the big three (great white, tiger, bull), all other sharks in the ISAF statistics fall under the category of "not many attacks" and their exact order in the stats is meaningless. Not to mention the source specifically states that ISAF stats are probably wrong for Carcharhinus species and should not be used to gauge how dangerous a particular species is
 * the number of attacks the great white is responsible for is irrelevant to this article
 * the 2014 attack in Tathra: the species ID was made by a non-specialist eyewitness and cannot be considered reliable, especially given that even experts have trouble discerning which Carcharhinus species is responsible for an attack. In any case, there's already an example given of a fatal attack (1976 NZ) and there's no need for more
 * The same goes for the 2011 Bunker Bay attack: non-specialists cannot be considered reliable sources for IDing the species of an attacking shark ("we were pretty convinced it was a bronze whaler" does not constitute proper scholarship)
 * The fact that 3 of the last 10 New Zealand attacks were by copper sharks gives no insight into the species because it's not generalizable. Is this 3 in 10 figure high? low? typical? These NZ attacks don't even account for a large proportion of the total. It's not important enough to warrant inclusion

Response
Yzx,

I can see from your talk page that you are a dedicated editor and a shark lover. I respect your opinions on this topic. As such, let me respond.

Based on your edits, it seems that your love of sharks is motivating you to downplay any danger to humans and promote the threat to the species. You are reverting the article to remove elements regarding attacks on humans and the fact that there is no reliable count of the species population.

Per NPOV_tutorial, I feel you are trying to suppress information you do not like in order to slant the article to support your views. The referenced page on NPOV states, "A common way of introducing bias is by one-sided selection of information. Information can be cited that supports one view while some important information that opposes it is omitted or even deleted. Such an article complies with Wikipedia:Verifiability but violates NPOV."

I feel I am more neutral on this issue. Sharks are great. Let's protect them, but let's also have a neutral article. I have no agenda here, just wish to defend the work I did to add these facts to the article.

For example, based on your first undoing of my edits, I changed my contribution to say, "Copper sharks only attack humans infrequently, but the species places sixth in the number of attacks on humans." Even though I said the attacks were infrequent, you still want to suppress the numbers. I object to this as a violation of the NPOV policy.

With that said, here are specific responses to your allegations listed above.


 * I can see your point about some of this being too much for the intro. I will edit it to hopefully present another compromise.


 * Your statement that citations are barred in introductions is incorrect. SeeManual_of_Style/Lead_section. This basically says that if a statement is likely to be challenged, it should be sourced. Since you have challenged my edits, it proves the need for sources.


 * Regarding the quotes embedded into the citations, these follow Wikipedia policy. Per Citing_sources, "Sometimes... it is useful to include additional annotation in the footnote, for example to indicate precisely which information the source is supporting... A footnote may also contain a relevant exact quotation from the source, if this may be of interest." I've added the exact text supporting my edits, since it will help readers find the supporting element in the pages referenced.


 * You may feel that the stats are "meaningless," but they are the best available facts. Just because you feel they are meaningless does not mean you have the right to erase them. If you have better stats or clarifying information, feel free to add that.


 * The white shark count lets readers compare the number of attacks by whites to the number from bronze whalers. I can see moving this to the article body, but it is a valuable comparison.


 * The New Zealand data certainly does give insight into the species, especially for people in that part of the world. You're being hypocritical to say that readers cannot judge the ratio of 3 in 10, but then saying that a comparison to the white shark count is not needed.


 * You are also removing the fact that the bronze whaler population is unknown. You appear to be trying to make this species sound as threatened as possible.

Again, I appreciate your extensive work on shark pages. I can see that you are very invested in this topic. I hope that you can compromise to allow a neutral presentation of facts, not try to slant the article to downplay attacks on humans and promote a possible threat to the species.

Wshallwshall (talk) 13:32, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I do love sharks but my only "agenda" is presenting information in a scientifically accurate way. I'll solicit further community input on this issue, and I'll respond to key points below:
 * Large-scale copypaste into references is the same as copypasting elsewhere. It should not be done, and may even represent a copyright violation. Quotes in references are supposed to be short, and used for either contentious statements or to direct people when the reference is extraordinarily large. Neither applies here.
 * The rank of this species in ISAF statistics is meaningless. It's not opinion, it's a matter of the scientific inference that can be drawn given the precision of the data. #5 on the list is the blacktip shark, #7 is the spinner shark. Does that mean that the copper shark is less dangerous than the blacktip and more dangerous than the spinner? No, because shark attack data in the ISAF isn't precise enough (b/c it's tough to ID the attacker, attacks are over-sampled in developed countries, attacks on swimmers are over-sampled relative to attacks on other people i.e. shipwreck survivors) to draw that kind of inference. Presenting the rank of #6 gives the impression that the rank is meaningful, and it simply isn't. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the ISAF list is that three species are responsible for way more attacks than everybody else.
 * The New Zealand data gives no contextual information that would inform the reader as to what it actually means. What conclusion would you draw from that figure? That the copper shark is responsible for 30% of shark attacks in NZ? Because you can't make that call from this data. Would you say that the copper shark is responsible for less than 50% of attacks? You can't draw that conclusion from the data either. Without more context, there's no way to interpret that data in an informative way.

--Yzx (talk) 20:29, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Yzx,

Thanks for the response. I appreciate your stating your goal of ensuring the article is scientifically accurate. I share that goal, so we have a fundamental basis for agreement. I also appreciate that you are discussing the issue. I agree that it would be good to have other editors help clear up the best way to proceed.

Your point about some of the quotes in the references being too long is well taken. I've tried to scale them back in the latest edit. It is a fine line between fair use in a citation and going too far, but I personally do like having a quote in the citation. Too often, I see citations that lead to items that appear to have no basis to support the connected "fact." In other forms of writing, the articles would use a direct quote instead of just a citation. That's not the encyclopedia style, so the citation's quote element allows for an alternative.

Regarding the statistics, I agree that it would be great if the article could have stronger citations. This seems, however, to be the best data available. I'm not the shark guy you are, but it seems to me that a lot of shark data is just as fuzzy. For example, is the copper threatened or not? Are the populations dropping or not?

The NZ data is another example. It would be great if you or someone else can provide better information than a single newspaper article. Pending a replacement, however, the information from that story does add value. It is apparent from the listed attacks that the bronze whaler is blamed or responsible for a large percentage of the attacks in the NZ waters. That is an interesting fact.

That is how I came to edit the article. I saw an article on the recent fatal attack in Australia, but had not heard of a bronze whaler. Looking at this article, I found that it said that, "While not noted as being especially dangerous to humans, the copper shark has been responsible for a number of non-fatal attacks, particularly on spear fishers and bathers." A quick search, however, revealed a number of fatal attacks.

Based on the NZ data, I don't think people there would agree that the copper is not especially dangerous. Likewise for Australia.

I do think it is interesting to note what the ISAF editor says: "A number of requiem sharks in the genus Carcharhinus likely are involved in many more attacks than they are credited in this list and, if the list could reflect that reality, Carcharhinus bites would push such species as the sandtiger, hammerhead and nurse sharks towards the bottom of the list."

I also wish there was population data for the species, since it would be interesting to compare the number of attacks to the number of coppers. It seems like coppers are credited for a high percentage of attacks in those areas where they are numerous.

If you or another editor has better, more scholarly data that would address these issues, I think it would improve the article. In the meantime, my feeling is that the article has to rely on what data is available. This is similar to the ICUN putting the species on the near threatened list, despite having very limited information on populations.

Thanks for your contributions to the article. Since our core goals are the same, I'm sure the different editing perspectives can be worked out.

Wshallwshall (talk) 00:06, 13 April 2014 (UTC)