Talk:Rodrigues pigeon

Contemporary descriptions
Contemporary descriptions, all that is known for this bird from life, would be a good addition to the article. The following was reverted:

Leguat described it as follows:

Quoting old texts has not been a problem at other good and featured articles before (see Mary Anning), including ones about extinct birds (Red Rail, Rodrigues Solitaire), and in a case like this, where most of the article would otherwise just be a close paraphrasing of old descriptions (as nothing else is known about the bird), I think the originals should be included. That it was all other secondary sources about these birds do after all. FunkMonk (talk) 19:12, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * See Do not include the full text of lengthy primary sources. I gave an link in explanation for removing the quotation in my edit summary. I think that MOS indicates that it would be better to paraphrase long quotations. Also it is in an old form of English and may not be readily understood all around the English speaking world. I do not know why long quotations slipped through at GA level recently, but it did not slip through on the Western Jackdaw nor Brown Thrasher pages. Snowman (talk) 19:24, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Those are extant birds. Literature about extant birds do rarely quote descriptions (why should they?), but literature about extinct birds almost always quotes contemporary descriptions, if such exist. The two cases are incomparable. But let's keep the discussion over at Solitaire. FunkMonk (talk) 22:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I should note that there is of course a difference between an extinct bird which was never described from life by scientists, only laymen (such as the Red Rail, †1700), and more recently extinct birds (such as the Huia, †1907), which were extensively described by contemporary scientitsts. FunkMonk (talk) 23:19, 20 August 2012 (UTC)