Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Soil/archive1

Soil
This is the signature article for WikiProject Soil. It reached "done" status in WikiProject Science earlier today, completing an article improvement process initiated with WikiProject Science on January 8 2006. The article has been prepared as a FAC in an effort to respond to a May 16 2006 nomination for inclusion in WPCD and an August 25 2006 nomination for Wikipedia Version 0.5 (see 0.5 nom). -- Paleorthid 20:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

--Peta 04:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Object. A good ways there, but first off, the lead section is insufficient. RyanG e rbil10 (Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 21:45, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Object. Support, seems fine now. Lead section is far too short. A lot of very short, choppy sections. Wikipedia articles (in this case Biorhexistasy and Paleopedological record) shouldn't be used as references. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) &bull; 21:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response: Biorhexistasy and Paleopedological record are now commented out. A more encyclopedic lead section will follow. WikiProject Science can provide some direction with the various expressions of choppiness. -- Paleorthid 02:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: I moved the "overview" up to expand the lead section, which I think is where it belongs, that makes the lead more reasonable in length IMHO. Walkerma 06:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed: The sectional structure of the article has been consolidated and reorganized. The lead section has had significant information added in an effort to achieve higher prose standard. Other minor additions occurred during this process. I believe these changes fully mitigate the actionable elements of the stated objections, opening the way to address any additional concerns.  The changes increased the page size to 32 Kb.  If this is undesireable, please comment. -- Paleorthid 20:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose
 * 1) Quotes should not be in italics, per the MoS.
 * 2) Wikipedia articles have a lead section - which is basically the introduction to the article, to have another section called introduction, that introduces the topic is pretty redundant. Information on history of soil could be moved to a section on the history of soil science.
 * 3) Soil characteristics is a weird list of topics related to soils, and is not well focussed on any one topic, and many of these topics really should be further expanded on in an article on soil - like structure and profile and soil biology/life.
 * 4) The structure of this article reduces the readability of the article - I would suggest you get a soil textbook and copy how its introductory chapter introduces the topic, take a look at protein which introduces the topic well and covers the important aspects in some depth.
 * Fixed quotes per MoS.
 * Consolidating intro with lead makes sense. The suggestion to move history to a seperate section is workable.
 * To respond to the initial portion of the comment "not well focussed on any one topic", (agree), the soil characteristics section can be organised along: soil morphology, soil functions, and other (like soil odor). This section is intended to fit the Science WikiProject's structural element What is (soil)> Properties / capabilities of (soil), with the range of values / behavior that can be observed, or significant values. The comment "and many of these topics really should be" seems to be a suggestion to improve articles such as soil structure, soil profile, and soil life, which I appreciate but wonder if I missed the point intended.
 * Not sure how to process this comment, in that the Science WikiProject suggested article structure is intended to enhance readibility. The SWP structure was chosen over soil textbook intro structures reviewed because it was the most encyclopedic and I don't believe the potential benefits of that structure have been exhausted yet. On the other hand, I agree that the protein article is well structured for that topic and see that it does not follow the SWP structure.

-- Paleorthid 14:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed the introduction. Moved most to the lead paragraph. History and disciplines moved to new sections consistent with SWP suggested structure.
 * Fixed the soil characteristics section in terms of focus and readibility. Concentrated the content on soil profile, color, structure and texture (ie soil morphology).

-- Paleorthid 05:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The article is looking much better, thanks for your work. A notable ommission is a section on the formation of soil (which I would put prior to the classification of soils); there is some information on this in soil in nature, but it gets mixed up with too much other stuff there. Something like this is what I would have expected.--Peta 01:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)