Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Whale/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 11:43, 25 September 2015.

Whale

 * Nominator(s): Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  02:06, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

This article is about whales, a paraphyletic group of the order Cetacea. This article was expanding by myself along with Chiswick Chap during the GA nomination. During this time, this article was majorly improved, and I know believe this article is ready for FA scrutiny. Thank you for your efforts. Dunkleosteus77  (push to talk)  02:06, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Comments by Squeamish Ossifrage, now with source check and suggested withdrawal
Looking only at references and reference formatting, no prose review except as noted:

General:
 * In general, there is a problem with how you cite web sources. You use URLs as publishers; that's rarely correct. There's some art to deciding what is a |work and what is a |publisher, and I try to be lenient towards any internally consistent approach, but URLs are neither. There are enough other issues with formatting that I'm pretty much just skipping this category of problems entirely at the moment, but I'll note that you cite the NOAA Fisheries website in at least four different formats...
 * This is still a problem. You're still using URLs for things that URLs aren't supposed to be used for (species-identification.org), and you've still got a mess of multiple formats for NOAA Fisheries material (#31, 47, 58, 85). Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * You've got some access dates as far back as 2010. I'd check these to ensure there are no dead links, and that nothing has changed. In at least one case, something has changed: the site formerly known as Physorg.com is now Phys.org (and is one of the few cases where the publisher actually should be styled like a URL, because that's how they name themselves).
 * You're still calling Phys.org by its old name and linking to its old URL. Yes, it forwards, but you shouldn't count on that. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * ISBNs should ideally be presented as properly-formatted ISBN-13s. You've got a mix of ISBN-10s and ISBN-13s, with inconsistent hyphenization, so at a minimum you need to be consistent about them, and the full standard is the most correct way to do so. This converter is your friend.
 * Some people here begrudge me for taking a hardline on this, but it's so easy, there's really no reason not to do it. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll finish the above tomorrow. Dunkleosteus77  (push to talk)  02:47, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Specific concerns:
 * Klinowska and Cooke is actually a book-format work. It's fine to link to the online copy (indeed, that's pretty much always appreciated where possible), but it should be cited as a book, including its assigned ISBN. You have the ISBN, but books need publishers. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You use "Anon" for the author of the Phys.org work, but don't do that in general (and probably shouldn't for that one, either).
 * Johnson and Wolman is actually an excerpt from the journal Marine Fisheries Review and needs to be given its full citation.
 * Not done. See the footer on odd numbered pages of the article. This is from volume 46, issue 4, and needs its page range cited as well. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Cozzi et al. needs to be given its full citation. The Open Zoology Journal had volume and issue numbers like most other scholarly publications.
 * Not done. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Thomas and Kastelein is a book that republishes a number of articles previously appearing in scholarly journals. That's fine to use (and you are correct to provide citation information for the book, rather than the original publication, if that is what you consulted), but you need to cite the specific work being referred to (using the |author fields for its authors, |chapter for the title, and providing the appropriate page range). There's some other oddities about this citation, too, including the volume number (which is actually the number of this book in its series, and probably doesn't need to be included in this manner).
 * The spurious volume number was removed, but otherwise, this is not done. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Reference #13 is not a complete citation.
 * This is now #14 ("Going Aquatic: Cetacean Evolution") and is still incomplete. It has a publication date given in the source, for one thing, and I'd cite Nature as the |work here. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Houben et al. is missing its issue number (6130).
 * Rose is actually a publication in Science and should be cited as such.
 * Gatesy is not correctly cited. It is not published by the University of Arizona. It is actually an article in the scholarly journal Molecular Biology and Evolution and should be cited appropriately. Also, [W]hales'.
 * Better, but still not correctly cited as a journal article. Needs volume/issue numbers and pagination. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Reference #20 has PNAS and #27 has Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. You should be consistent.
 * Ralls and Mesnick is an excerpt from something, probably a book-format encyclopedia. It needs to have its full citation, regardless.
 * I can't find it, which number is it?
 * This is currently reference #30. Also, its authors are not formatted in the same manner as the rest of the sources. There's a lot wrong with this one. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Although the American Cetacean Society is undoubedtly a reliable source for information about cetaceans, I'm not sure that a primary and secondary school teaching guide (reference #29) is a high-quality source for a hard science topic at the FA level; others are welcome to disagree with me here.
 * Ideally, Scholander should have the article's page numbers. Journal citations do not typically require publisher information.
 * Not done. I'll admit, this one was hard to find. The page range is 1–131. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Stevens and Hume needs an ISBN.
 * But see my general comment about ISBNs. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Why is yellowmagpie.com a reliable source?
 * Whales Alive is a nonprofit organization dedicated to whale conservation in the South Pacific, but I'm not sure that's the best quality source for anatomical discussion of whales?
 * Norena and Williams has a doi available: 10.1016/S1095-6433(00)00182-3
 * The article cited to EurekAlert is a press release.
 * You've reformatted this more or less as though it were a Usenet newsgroup post, which it isn't. The problem is that it's a press release, and isn't an appropriate-quality source for the block of hard science it's being used to reference. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * You aren't consistent about how you cite page number ranges; at the very least, Thewissen is the first place I've seen an abbreviated range (570–2). Be consistent in your styling.
 * The Evolutionary Biology of Hearing has an ISBN (and should be formatted as a book).
 * Better, but still missing an ISBN. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Reference #41 is not properly formatted.
 * This is now reference #40, but is not improved. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Mann et al. has an ISBN. Also, the authors here are formatted differently than they are elsewhere (first last versus last, first).
 * Still a problem with the author names; check your template formatting. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This is because they're not the authors, they're the editors. Should they be formatted as authors? Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  23:28, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Allman et al. shouldn't abbreviate the journal title.
 * The journal title was expanded, but was expanded incorrectly. The correct title is Trends in Cognitive Sciences. I'm going to be unusually blunt here. Just clicking on that doi link takes you to the abstract page for the article, with the journal's name in white letters on an attractive blue background right at the top of the page. That this was changed, but changed wrong does not fill me with confidence for the overall quality of scholarship here. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Deleted. The surrounding refs, e.g., Watson, should be able to replace Allman et al.


 * Moore is not an official publication of the University of California San Diego, but the work of an individual faculty member in his personal webspace there; it should probably not be considered a reliable source.
 * There's some funny business with the formatting of Carwardine and Hoyt, to say the least; also, individual chapters of this book have attributed authorship, so probably should be cited explicitly if you're going to use it. That said, while it's probably acceptable, a Reader's Digest book on whales is likely replaceable by a more scholarly publisher's treatment.
 * Not addressed. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * "Elephant Self-Awareness Mirrors Humans" has an author: Charles Q. Choi.
 * Added, but in the first last format, not the last, first format that (most of ) the other references use. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Megaptera novaeangliae needs to be italicized within the title of Johnson and Wolman. Also, there's an extra "Johnson" in the author list, along with some problems with semicolon/comma/period use. Finally, this is another article from Marine Fisheries Review that needs cited as such.
 * Fixed in part. First author is formatted incorrectly. And nothing at all has been done to show that this is an article from Marine Fisheries Review. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Nemoto et al. is actually a chapter in a book, rather than an article in a journal, so needs to be formatted thusly (and including editor information for the book itself). I'd use the ISBN for the book in place of the doi assinged to the chapter, but that choice is actually a matter of your discretion.
 * Better, but still needs the editor(s) of the parent work. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * In the Riedman reference, you wikilink the publisher, but you don't do that anywhere else, so probably shouldn't here. Also, [L]ions.
 * Smith and Sjare is actually an article from the journal Arctic and needs cited as such.
 * As with many of the journal articles that you cite via archival copies, lacks volume, issue, and page numbers. Publishers are discouraged for journal articles. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Reference #68 cites Science Daily, an online source, but provides no URL.
 * Worse than before. This now—correctly—includes the URL at ScienceDaily, but you have incorrectly attached a doi. That doi is actually the identifier of the article ScienceDaily is crediting with the first image! You actually cite this article in reference #70. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Roman et al. doesn't need a publisher.
 * ...but it does need volume/issue/page numbers. Also, upon closer look, there are some spurious spaces before some of the semicolons that make me think these author lists aren't templatized (I haven't looked), which is likely the cause of some of the author problems in general. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Roman and McCarthy has a typo in the author list ("McCarth y") and needs the volume/issue/epage/doi information. Also, PL[o]S ONE.
 * Typos fixed, missing bibliographic information is still missing. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * For Smith and Baco, scholarly journal articles do not require publishers.
 * Fujiwara needs page numbers.
 * "Rock art hints at whaling origins" has a publication date available (20 April 2004).
 * But now your reference claims this is a Usenet posting, probably due to an incorrect choice of template or incorrect template formatting. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Reference #78 is incomplete.
 * This is #76 now (Basque whaling in Labrador in the 16th century). There's literally not enough information in this citation for me to identify the work to tell you what you're missing. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * So now what? Delete it?


 * Metcalfe uses a different date format than the other references; I may have missed some of these elsewhere. Actually, looking back over, I see another date format mismatch in reference #55.
 * Metcalfe looks better, but what was #55 (Modern Marvels) still has an ISO date instead of the DD MMM YYYY format you use elsewhere. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What does ref#55 have to do with this? I'm confused...


 * Rommel et al. is a paper in the Journal of Cetacean Resource Management; the current reference is incomplete.
 * Volume, issue, pagination. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Schrope needs an issue number (6868) and page number (106).
 * For references #94 and #95, material without a stated author doesn't need to be attributed to unknown. Nor does it need to be attributed to the publisher, as in #96 from the same source (which is itself missing a retrieval date). Actually, #95 and #96 are the same page... Reference #99 is the way these should be styled.
 * The International Whaling Commission references are still a mess. You have three references where you need two. And none of them are entirely correctly formatted. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * So remove ref #95?


 * MacKenzie is an online source with no link provided.
 * Reference #100 is maybe better served as a footnote. Or as quoted text attached to a citation to its source. In any case, there's no context for where this comes from here. Also, Wikipedia discourages use of Id. in references (even internally, as here).
 * This is now #98, but all the same comments apply; nothing has been changed here. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Reference #104 is the webspace of an individual with a UCLA account, not an official publication of UCLA. It is not a reliable source.
 * Changing reference numbers as the article evolved may have caused a problem here. The unreliable source that is miscredited to UCLA is "Beluga Whale Watching", currently #102. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Björgvinsson needs a publisher.
 * Björgvinsson is ref #104, which you told me to delete. Should I keep it and add the publisher, or delete it? I'll leave it alone for now.
 * As noted, there may have been some confusion between this one and the UCLA source. Björgvinsson is fine, but needs a publisher. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Siebert is missing bibliographic information, but that's a moot point. This is a children's book, and so is not a high-quality reliable source.
 * Why is worldtrans.org a reliable source?
 * Cressy is an article in the Rapa Nui Journal and should be formatted as such.
 * I've largely avoided a prose review, but I'll just note that references 116–118 are utterly inadequate for the material they are used to reference.
 * This is still true. These are the references to scriptural passages. Just to make plain the depth of the problems here, the sentence "A medieval column capital sculpture depicting this was made in the 12th century in the abbey church in Mozac, France." is currently cited to the Quran! Even more so than most candidates, this is going to need a thorough prose review to ensure that content is cited to its purported references, because in this case, at least, it self-evidently is not. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought I deleted that during the Image Review. Is it still in the "In myth, literature, and art" section?


 * Reference #120 is not a complete citation.
 * "And God Created Great Whales" is now #116, and still incomplete. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Eberhart is actually a book, and should be cited appropriately, with publisher and ISBN.
 * Lacks publisher still. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Is the publisher recognised? Is it ABC-CLIO, Inc.?

Also:
 * I don't want to give the impression that Further reading sections are never acceptable at the FA level, but I always feel compelled to ask the question: Why are these sources given as Further reading? If they do not contain anything beyond what the article and its cited sources include, then they would be redundant. If they do, shouldn't that material be cited and included instead?
 * I'm unconvinced of the utility of the the External links provided.

Well, that was a lot of text. Looking back on the GA review of this article, "systematic referencing" was specifically indicated as something that would be challenged by reviewers here. Indeed, rightly so. Briefly skimming the article with an eye to 's other comments, I'm left with the sense that more should have been done between the GA promotion and this nomination. Lean oppose. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:11, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Yeah, citations have always been a problem. I'll try to get these resolved in around two days. Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  00:25, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I pretty sure that I've fixed the listed refs (except for number 104, I'm still confused on that one). Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  19:25, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I was away from the project for about a week attending to other matters, and let this get away from me. The nominator requested that I return here to re-evaluate my objections in light of recent improvements. I have not examined any of the references which were added since 11 September, nor have I made any examination of prose (except in the limited case of the content citing religious works, mostly improperly). Some of what I had objected to has been addressed, but very little of it has been resolved. A substantial number of references are still incomplete, badly misformatted, and in some cases explicitly misleading. Oppose 2c at this time. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * And actually, before posting this, I took a brief look through the prose and opt to oppose 1a as well. This is badly in need of a thorough peer review from editors familiar with the FA standards. The use of colons to create indented text is nonstandard, and I'm fairly certain is proscribed by the MOS, somewhere (on accessibility grounds, at the least). Passages like "Ziphiids consist of 22 species of beaked whale. These vary, but have similar hunting styles. They use a sort of suction technique, aided by a pair of grooves on the underside of their head, not unlike the throat pleats on the rorqual whales, to feed." do not strike an encyclopedic tone, and are certainly not compelling prose. The disinclusion of the Orcininae from what is already a paraphyletic group defined by popular nomenclature is not handled well, and is certainly not supported by sufficient sources to make that distinction with the absolutism presented here. Arguably, that's a 1b concern. At this point, I really don't think this is at all ready for FAC, and am unlikely to revise my stance absent evidence of some truly remarkable development in the remaining candidacy. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:35, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Citations for me have always been, still are, and always will be, a killer. I'll try to get the references finished before Saturday (probably tomorrow or day after). Thanks for responding! Dunkleosteus77  (push to talk)  03:17, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Source check
Because of the problems with referencing, I have been increasingly concerned that there are more significant problems with this article. Rather than go through the most recent set of reference issues to see what progress has been made, because I decided to take the time to examine the use of those references with regard to the prose. This is a source check in the FAC sense of several semi-randomly selected sections: Urge withdrawal. I mean no disrespect to the editors who have worked on this article over the past several months, but this is not in acceptable condition for FAC (I would fail this article under criterion 2 at GAC), and there is simply no possibility of the shortcomings being corrected over a reasonable time frame for candidacy. Even more so than the recently-archived Bentworth FAC, this is an article with a broad topic and long history, but with pervaisve reference formatting problems and claims that simply are not supported by their proferred sources. This will be my last observation regarding this candidacy; my opposition at this point is firmly established. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:30, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The discussion of the mirror test in the Intelligence section is cited to this New York Times article. Which presents an immediate problem, because the animals discussed therein are bottlenose dolphins, which this article takes care to exclude from the paraphyletic category of "whale". That aside, the entire last paragraph of the Intelligence section is utterly unsupported by the source; the Times makes no mention of the Clever Hans effect, only weakly supports the social interaction claims, and does not draw the same contrast between cetaceans and apes that is being made here.
 * The last sentence of the first paragraph in Life cycle is entirely unsourced, which is especially a problem because it is factually incorrect, at least to some extent. Male cetaceans do not engage in calf-rearing in a traditional sense, but this wants badly for a discussion of triad social groups, the vast majority of which include a male whale in the escort position.
 * The last paragraph of Life cycle is even more problematic. This paragraph makes several substantive claims: frostbite avoidance activity for young calves, uniform migration times across species, tropical wintering grounds, and specific claims about the North Atlantic right whale and the southern right whale. The entire paragraph is sourced to this scholarly article, which is exclusively about the humpback whale; nothing in the source supports even a single sentence of the article text.
 * The first citation in the Sleep section deals exclusively with orcas and bottlenose dolphins. Additionally, it is nearly exclusively concerned with sleep behavior in neonate animals and their mothers. Ironically, the second reference in this section is more appropriate to support the text. In general, I also do not feel this section is an adequate summary of the current state of the literature, nor is it compelling prose.
 * The last paragraph of the In captivity section is exclusively cited to the very large IUCN report on cetaceans, and is so cited without page numbers for specific claims. That makes verification challenging. However, I undertook to do so. The claims of "repeated" attempts to establish captive narwhal populations is weakly supported by the source; specifically, it states there were two such efforts (a single neonate at some point in the 1960s, and a group of six in 1970. (p. 85) The source supports the semi-captivity of a pair of pygmy right whales in South Africa, but does not make the claim that they were a breeding pair (p. 366). The history of gray whales in captivity given in the source does not match what the article reports. Specifically, the source provides no mention of JJ. Additionally, the article does not distinguish between Gigi (failed effort to transport to captivity) and Gigi II (successfully kept at Sea World, San Diego). The source does not suggest that Gigi/Gigi II were live-strandings; on the contrary, both whales were captured under permit from Ojo de Liebre Lagoon (pp. 372-373). The claim that Gigi (II, presumably) is the first of two baleen whales to be taken captive is also dubious as regards the source. There have been three efforts to keep minke whales in captivity (p. 383), a Bryde's whale held briefly at Sea World Florida (p. 399), and an effort to rehabilitate a live-stranded humpback whale (p. 421) In fact, I'm also increasingly uncertain of the section's claim that belugas were the first whales "to be kept in captivity." The source agrees that belugas "were probably the first cetacean species to be successfully maintained in captivity" [emphasis mine] (p. 73). However, a prior example of a whale being kept, albeit very briefly and unsuccessfully, in captivity, is that of a Sowerby's beaked whale in August 1828 (p. 279). Note that the New York Tribune source makes no claims as to whether the 1861 whales were the first in captivity, merely the first kept in captivity by Barnum.
 * Finally, while something between a source check and an image review, I would like to point out that the whale range map in the infobox is nothing of the sort. Rather, it is the range of the orca, a species that (in my mind somewhat dubiously) is specifically excluded from this article's content. That should be self-evident, as the map's file name is File:Cypron-Range Orcinus orca.svg and it's description is "Range of killer whale (Orcinus orca)."
 * Pinging the coordinators. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:32, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, and your suggestions have been very helpful to the citations of the article, a subject most people tend to overlook down at Peer Review. If Whale is not listed as FA by the end of this, I'll try to get another peer review for it, and specify citations as a big problem area. Dunkleosteus77  (push to talk)  22:18, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Image review

 * Some of the more detail-heavy images could stand to be scaled up in size
 * What's with the odd capitalization on the whale song caption?
 * No idea. Removed.


 * File:Sperm_whale_skeleton_labelled.jpg: this is tagged as CC and sourced to the FWS, but is derived from a file that is tagged PD-self, which is itself derived from a file tagged PD-old. What is the correct source and licensing?
 * This goes through many many different files, but the file it is truly derived from is File:Sperm whale drawing with skeleton.jpg; I'll explain the copyright status later...
 * Waiting for explanation on this - the source you suggest is derived from the PD-old file mentioned above. Nikkimaria (talk) 10:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * :: It's sourced to two images that are both public domain because the authors died before 1923, so it is public domain; added US PD tags on both


 * File:GreenlandWhaleLyd3.jpg needs a US PD tag, and what is the author's date of death?
 * The author, Richard Lydekker, died in 1915, so it should be public domain; US PD tag added


 * File:Sperm_whale_drawing_with_skeleton.jpg is sourced to two PD-old images lacking US PD tags
 * It's sourced to two images that are both public domain because the authors died before 1923, so it is public domain; added US PD tags on both


 * File:Polar_Bear_ANWR_10.jpg: source links are dead
 * redirected to naturespicsonline.com gallery on polar bears
 * I think you should also add this link so the image reviewer knows that the image (and pretty much every other image on that website) is licensed under CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. Aside from that, where exactly is this image within the site? I can't seem to find it. Burklemore1 (talk) 05:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed - are we certain that this image came from that site? Nikkimaria (talk) 10:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, according to the people down at WikiMedia Commons, the image was originally from that website, but was deleted, and its copyright license is still valid so long as we have the original publication site, naturepicsonline.com. Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  14:40, 20 September 2015 (UTC)


 * File:Whale_Fishing_Fac_simile_of_a_Woodcut_in_the_Cosmographie_Universelle_of_Thevet_in_folio_Paris_1574.png needs a US PD tag
 * US PD tag was added


 * File:International_Whaling_Commission_members.svg: IWC link is dead
 * Yes, it was directing to the home page which moved; I replaced it with the url of the current home page


 * File:Chapiteau_Mozac_Jonas_1.JPG: since France does not have freedom of panorama, we need a PD tag for the artwork itself as well as the current photo licensing tag
 * The copyright is for the photo itself. The artwork does not need a PD tag.
 * I know the copyright is for the photo itself, what I'm asking is what the copyright of the artwork is. Nikkimaria (talk) 10:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You're right. From what I can tell from the image, the author did not get permission to publish this photo. I've added a request to delete the photo, and will delete the image from the article. Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  23:02, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ...okay, I think we may be talking past each other here. If the description is accurate, the artwork is likely public domain due to age, and thus the author would not need permission to publish this photo. However, I'd like to (a) confirm that the artwork is original to that period (ie. not a later addition, etc) and (b) if so, to clarify on the image description page that this is the creator's own photo of a now-PD artwork. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:23, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In that case, I misinterpreted the freedom of panorama article... Well, the abbey-church in Mozac was founded in like 500 or 600 CE, and earthquakes around 1500 destroyed a sizable portion of it. It had to have been built between that time. Also, I don't think anyone would sculpt in the ruins of a monastery. It certainly is not a recent edition. By clarify on the image, do you mean add "abbey-church of Mozac" to the source? Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  02:20, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There are different ways to approach this - examples: 1, 2. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:59, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I used the bust example Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  17:31, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * File:Oswald_Brierly_-_Whalers_off_Twofold_Bay,_New_South_Wales,_1867.jpg: source link is dead. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:37, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * redirected to http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/6294/

I'm working on the rest; it should be done either later in the evening, or tomorrow around noon (Pacific-standard-time). Dunkleosteus77  (push to talk)  18:50, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm pretty sure I've fixed the listed images. Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  00:35, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment from Tim riley
I'm sure the article is going to prove worthy of FA status, but it needs some work on the prose, which at present is a mish-mash of English and American spellings. On the one hand "metre", "characterised", "oesophagus", "behaviour", "recognised", "watercolour", "colour" etc, and on the other "gray", "mollusks", "channeled", "liters", "hemoglobin", etc. (And one that I don't think is either UK or US: "developement".)  Tim riley  talk    08:10, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Done and done. Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  22:23, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Nergaal

 * blue whale should be linked in the intro, same for baleen
 * fixed


 * "heads that can make up 40% of their body mass to take in water" not sure what the last part is supposed to mean
 * There should be a comma after heads and after mass; fixed.


 * maybe the taxonomy diagram can use colors to show the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises
 * You mean like whales should be in green font or something?


 * krill should be linked
 * Done


 * why are "cetotheriids" not discussed in the taxo? same for kogiids
 * "infraorder Cetacea includes dolphins and porpoises, which are not considered whales." this section should clearly explain why is that? any scientific reason or just common use? especially for porpoises
 * There actually is no scientific reasoning, it's just really common sense. Like, you wouldn't call a narwhal a dolphin even though they're in the same clade Delphinoidea, or a sperm whale a dolphin even though they're in the same suborder. It's not size, it's not shape, it's not feeding behaviour (well, at least for the odontocetes), it's just common sense.


 * Whale vocalisation is red
 * It didn't accept the british spelling of "vocalization"; fixed


 * "averaging 8,000 cubic centimetres (490 in3) and 7.8 kilograms (17 lb) in mature males" => compared to how much in humans?
 * done


 * have there been cases of whales have preyed on humans? also, how often do whales drown people?
 * As far as I know, this only happens in Moby Dick
 * It happened at SeaWorld twice. Nergaal (talk) 18:44, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Nergaal (talk) 19:38, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Those were killer whales and, I know the name is very confusing, is a dolphin; killer whales are categorized as blackfish, which is an informal grouping of cetaceans that are dolphins but commonly confused as whales. Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  22:26, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * My bad, I completely forgot. This point should be present in the article where you say it does not include dolphins. Nergaal (talk) 00:51, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There are like six blackfish species, and it doesn't sound like a good idea to identify species that aren't whales. If at all, I should just make a list of the species that are considered whales. Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  04:17, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The article should identify which of the species named "whatever whale" is not actually considered a whale. Nergaal (talk) 17:38, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Alright then, I think I could try to do this. Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  19:00, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Done and done. I added it into the "Odontocetes" section, as all blackfish are toothed whales. Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  19:07, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "There are six species, sometimes referred to as "blackfish", that are dolphins commonly misconceived as whales: the killer whale, the melon-headed whale, the pygmy killer whale, the false killer whale, and the two species of pilot whales." Excellent explanation, but so future viewers don't come an remove it could you give it a reference too? Some Oceanographic institute or something like that making this clarification. Nergaal (talk) 03:03, 20 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I noticed that the clade template does not correspond 1:1 to the text below. Can you make sure they are the same? Right now the differences confuse me, like which exact part of Delphinoidea is a whale, where do kogiids and ziphiids go, are Lipotoidea whales, what are cetotheriids and where they fit. Nergaal (talk) 03:10, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Ziphiids would fall under the clade Ziphioidea, naturally, and kogiids consist are dwarf and pygmy sperm whales (and it is stated in the Odontocetes section) and fall under Physeteroidea. Cetotheriids are much like rorquals (and it is stated in the Mysticetes section)
 * I've highlighted the whale species in green on the cladogram Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  14:34, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That helps it a lot! Much better! Nergaal (talk) 19:43, 20 September 2015 (UTC)


 * You have my support. Nergaal (talk) 19:43, 20 September 2015 (UTC)


 * "how often do whales drown people?" "It happened at SeaWorld twice." I think that you are referring to Tilikum (orca). Orcas are classified as dolphins/porpoises. Thus they are technically not whales. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:32, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Axl

 * From the lead section, paragraph 1: "Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the clade Cetartiodactyla with even-toed ungulates and their closest living relatives are the hippopotamuses." Is "Cetartiodactyla" the same as "Artiodactyla"? The term "clade" is somewhat vague. Both "Cetartiodactyla" and "Artiodactyla" redirect to "Even-toed ungulate". Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:40, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, Cetartiodactyla and Artiodactyla and Even-toed ungulate are all synonyms of each other.
 * How about "order" rather than "clade"? Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:17, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Ah, the "Taxonomy and evolution" section states that "Cetartiodactyla" is a super-order. However "Even-toed ungulates" indicates that "Laurasiatheria" is the super-order. (Laurasiatheria includes far more orders.) Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:56, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pointing that out, I must have overlooked it. Cetartiodactyla is not a super-order.
 * I have adjusted the text slightly. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:19, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * From "Taxonomy and evolution": "The largest parvorder, Mysticeti (baleen whales), is characterised by the presence of baleen, a sieve-like structure in the upper jaw made of keratin, which it uses to filter plankton, among others, from the water." What are "others"? <b style="color:#808000">Axl</b> ¤ <small style="color:#808000">[Talk] 11:51, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That level of detail was taken down on the grounds of subsidiary articles (Mysticeti), along with a lot of other stuff. I'm not in the mood to start an edit war over this. Plus, I just used plankton as an example of the many things a whale might eat.
 * How about: "... a sieve-like structure in the upper jaw made of keratin, which it uses to filter plankton and other food from the water."? <b style="color:#808000">Axl</b> ¤ <small style="color:#808000">[Talk] 09:21, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * From "Taxonomy and evolution", subsection "Mysticetes", paragaph 1: "they instead have baleen plates which act as sieves for microorganisms." Do they really filter micro-organisms? "Plankton" is a diverse group that includes organisms of many sizes. The reference provided does not mention micro-organisms. <b style="color:#808000">Axl</b> ¤ <small style="color:#808000">[Talk] 12:09, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, the definition of "microscopic" is "not visible to the naked eye" (you can basically get that definition anywhere), and, though they do come in many sizes, all known plankton are not visible to the naked eye. Though, you do have a point, since krill aren't microscopic... I'll change it.
 * "all known plankton are not visible to the naked eye". This subsection of "Plankton" indicates a much wider range than you imply. <b style="color:#808000">Axl</b> ¤ <small style="color:#808000">[Talk] 09:28, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Alright, I'll try to fix these as best I can, but if you have any other comments, it seems like you'll have to leave them on the talk page, as this page is being archived. Dunkleosteus77   (push to talk)  22:18, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Coordinator note: Ongoing commentary indicates this nomination was not well-prepared and that further work is needed on sourcing and citing, beyond the scope of FAC. This will be archived shortly. -- Laser brain  (talk)  11:43, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

-- Laser brain  (talk)  11:43, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.