Talk:Pallas's cat/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 16:15, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Comments
Well, first let me say I'm pleased to see that after editing this article for 9 years, you're finally happy to see it at GAN. And indeed it reads like a mature article, and is fully-cited, so not much will be needed to complete its passage to GA status.
 * Thanks for reviewing this, Chiswick Chap !!! Well I thought too, that it's time to promote the page on this amazing cat. But 9 years ago, the info and published resources were of course quite scarce compared to now. I look forward to what you think is still missing or needs to be addressed. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 16:35, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * A small question: why say "The Pallas's cat"? I'd have thought "Pallas's cat" sufficient, and indeed the article quite often drops the "the" (definite article). It'll read better without.
 * If this page was about an *individual* cat owned or kept by one particular person named Pallas, then I would agree that the definite article is NOT needed, even superfluous! An example for such an individual is *Dali's ocelot*. But since this is the name of a species, just like e.g. leopard cat or Andean cat is, the definite article is appropriate. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 18:30, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * For the record, I don't agree, and nor I think would many other editors. Perhaps this is a language variant thing.


 * Polish citation in 'news' needs a trans-title, but not sure such a list of citations is a proper use of External links, as Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS. Maybe the list of citations should be removed but I'd be interested to hear your reasoning.
 * All these 'news' were formerly part of the section 'In captivity'. I deleted some old ones from the early 2010s and shifted the remaining ones because I think that it's not the purpose of this section to list all the kittens born in zoos. Since 60 zoos keep PCs, you can imagine that lots of kittens are born every year. So I agree to removing the remaining news as well, if you think appropriate. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 17:23, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * "artificially inseminated with semen" - there's no other substance that works for the purpose, so the "with semen" is redundant.
 * the point was : "with semen from the resident male". They also tried to use frozen semen from a PC wild-caught in Mongolia, but that didn't work. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 17:23, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * All that needs to be said then is "artificially inseminated, using the resident male".


 * No idea why you're redlinked "Norwegian Institute for Nature Research".
 * I didn't, but a different editor did. The link can be removed, and perhaps reinserted only if and when someone creates that page. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 17:23, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I see it's gone already.


 * "bromadiolone in the frame of rodent control measures" - why not just say "the rodenticide bromadiolone".
 * done-- BhagyaMani (talk) 17:23, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * 'Reproduction' seems to cover 'life cycle' as well, so perhaps rename it.
 * done -- BhagyaMani (talk) 17:23, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * On the categories, "Felids of Asia" seems to be sufficient; all the country categories like "Fauna of Armenia" and "Mammals of Mongolia" are rather fussy: if the cat occurs in one corner of a country, is it not misleading to list it in this way? And each country has thousands of animals on its territory, but the categories only contain a couple of dozen, so something is seriously wrong here (the categories are thus grossly incomplete and likely to remain useless for navigation). I suggest we just remove all of the country categories.
 * done -- BhagyaMani (talk) 17:32, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * 'Distribution and habitat' is rather choppy, with a lot of short paragraphs, several of just one sentence, all beginning "In ABC, ...". Perhaps you could merge some of these paragraphs, reword a bit, or better format them as a table rather than as rather repetitive text. We could have columns for Country, recent sightings (refs), historic sightings (refs). Or perhaps the text could be reorganised to have a subsection on temperature range (first paragraph, mainly), a subsection on altitudinal range (merged from countries), and a subsection on geographic range (with a paragraph summary and then the table (as little text as possible). How does that sound? I think it'd not be difficult.
 * I'll ponder on how to group the paragraphs or design a table. Give me a day please. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 19:04, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's fine.
 * I decided against the table, partly because historical evidence is scarce and patchy across a laaarge region, e.g. 0 from the western to eastern Himalayas. Will reorganise remaining paragraphs asap. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 11:17, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * OK.
 * I outcommented the reference to the Azerbaijani Red Book for now, as a listing there is of course not evidence for its presence. Please let me know whether you think it more appropriate to remove this and the assumed local extinction altogether. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 11:17, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Just leave it, it may well be usable.
 * I'll tackle images once I finalised grouping the last 5 remaining paragraphs. Do you have a preference regarding placement of the one about Afghanistan ? This would either fit *before* the paragraph on Central Asia, as the Hindu Kush ranges into Tajikistan. It would equally fit before the one about Pakistan, as the Hindu Kush transitions into Karakorum and western Himalayas. My plan is to group refs to Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bhutan into one paragraph on Himalayas. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 14:39, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Either will do.
 * Resolved this by the link to Iranian Plateau, which stretches from the mountains in western Iran to across Afghanistan into northern Pakistan. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Definitely an improvement; each of the 3 images should be captioned to explain its relevance to the cat.
 * Main issue is just the use of images.
 * 1) We don't need four similar images of adult cats in zoos: the one in the infobox is sufficient for adult, and the kitten image is fine for the Reproduction section. I suggest you remove the other three really, they're basically either decorative or just instances of people putting their photos into the article, but either way not very useful to readers.
 * In 'Characteristics', I added the 1st one as it shows the PCs long fur that I described in this section, and 2nd one as it shows the facial markings and low set ears. But I agree to remove the one in section 'In captivity': yes, this is plain decorative. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 17:32, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * 2) It's not appropriate to list seven images of (not terribly dissimilar) habitats. Perhaps one or two would be all right, with captions to convey the message "Pallas's cat can live in high mountains (Alborz image) or moorland (Khustain Nuruu image)". The others are redundant.
 * ok, will remove some -- BhagyaMani (talk) 19:04, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * decreased no. of images to 4 -- BhagyaMani (talk) 11:17, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Still hard to see the justification for that: one moor, one mountain makes sense but 3 mountains? In terms of habitat that's just two habitats. I'd suggest the captions be written to show how the images are relevant to the section (actually that's always a good practice), so you might say something like "Pallas's cat can live in high wild moorland, such as here at Khustain Nuruu". That ties in the image for the reader, allows the skimming reader to get a quick overview of the article, and justifies the image to other editors.
 * Will work on the captions. But if you understood that PC inhabits 'moor' anywhere in its range, I must have misdescribed something. Where?
 * Guess I just saw an image of high rugged moorland. Try "plateau" perhaps.
 * That image taken in Khustain Nuruu shows dry grassland; I removed it anyway. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 12:14, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * My point is simply that there's room for one image of a mountainous habitat, and perhaps one of some flatter habitat (plateau at Ukuk, steppe at Hustai National Park) if that's different, each image suitably captioned to tie it into the habitat discussion.
 * How do you like this option: remove the 1st img showing Alborz Mountains + replace the last one by this File:Confluence of Marsyagdi and Jharsang Khola, Annapurna Himal.jpg taken in the upper Marshyangdi river valley ? These 3 images are fairly representative for the rocky alpine and high-elevated plateau grassland habitats. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 16:17, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * done. And hope that by shifting images next to respective paragraphs, their relevance becomes clearer now? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2021 (UTC)


 * 3) Same for the list of four prey species as images, with no Pallas's cat in sight: if we had images of prey being caught or eaten, that'd be another matter. I'm afraid they're basically decorative, contrary to policy.

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