Wikipedia:Featured article review/Killer whale/archive1


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

The article was kept by Dana boomer 01:25, 3 April 2010.

Review commentary

 * Notified: Main editor User talk:Clayoquot, nominator User talk:Pcb21, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canada, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject British Columbia, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Washington, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Arctic, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cetaceans

I am nominating this featured article for review because it currently lacks inline citations, criteria 1(c). Tom B (talk) 19:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The 3 wp:disambiguation links are okay here. Needs wp:alt text, Tom B (talk) 20:14, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. It has 67 inline citations. It had them before you brought it up here, too (as indicated here). ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:18, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi yes, though many paragraphs have none and the vocalisations section has none at all, Tom B (talk) 12:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Then you need to be more specific in your comments. You indicated that it "lacked inline citations" rather than "some paragraphs lack inline citations". ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added some refs to the vocalisations section. More to come. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 00:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Please see the WP:FAR instructions; keep or delist are not declared during the FAR phase. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 19:15, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Non-comment-comment: This article has been on my watchlist and my things-to-improve list for years, and I'm actually quite glad that it's been brought to FAR because it needs fresh perspectives on what its areas of weakness are and fresh estimates of how much work will be required to make it satisfactory. In case anyone's wondering, I'm not going to be the least bit offended if it gets delisted ;) I'm very interested in seeing others' comments. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:45, 31 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment - yeah, needs some work. Prose is funny in places and there is some material needing referencing. Taxonomy (as in what it is most closely related to) is missing..anyway, plenty to do. Looks otherwise fairly comprehensive content-wise. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I've expanded Taxonomy. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - The article goes from strong to very weak the more you scroll down the page, which is really quite dissapointing. 68 references is good, but for an article that's over 65 000 bytes, it's not actually that much, especially for a subject that is pretty well covered in both scientific and general literature. I would also like to see a lot more of the references provided using the . The section Whaling seems really short; what exactly distinguishes it from Killer whales and humans and Conservation? —  Io Katai  ᵀᵃˡᵏ  19:06, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not required that references use citation templates, simply that they be formatted consistently. At the moment, the bigger problem is the lack of information in many references - web references lacking publishers, access dates and language notations for non-English references and books missing page numbers. There are also several areas that need more referencing, some of which are already marked by citation needed tags. Also, the reliability of the references needs some attention, in a quick look I saw multiple YouTube videos and a blog being used. Dana boomer (talk) 19:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason I mentioned the citation core template was because it encourages users to provide more details than the reference tags alone, and also encourages other users to follow the same format (the copy paste effect). I know it's not mandatory, but it does impact the reference details and the overall stylistic appeal of the article. —  Io Katai  ᵀᵃˡᵏ  09:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree that the section on whaling is overly short. Whaling was never a serious threat to killer whale conservation as it has been for many other whale species. It is mentioned only very briefly in the books I've seen about killer whales. I don't know how to address the concern about how to distinguish the Whaling section from the "Killer whales and humans section," as the former is a subsection of the latter. Can you state your concerns in a different way? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:21, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Well the entire Killer whales and humans section looks different from when I posted and looks better balanced out now, previously I couldn't really see the purpose of separating that tiny section on its own. (Though I still think it's not very detailed, and provides information that could be merged into the Conservation section - which btw, I don't understand why it's separate from the Killer whales and humans section ). Looking at the sectionnow, the last two sentences are really out of place; you start off talking about commercial whaling in the mid 20th century, and end abruptly with killer whales helping hunters to whale a century earlier. You might want to say "other whales", or do they help whale themselves? In the lead, what stocks of larger species have been depleted? Is this really the only reason people decided to commercially whale them? What about commercial and subsistence whaling in other cultures, such as Canada? —  Io Katai  ᵀᵃˡᵏ  09:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

*Comment, The following paragraph might come from here.

("Individual Killer Whales can be identified from a good photograph of the animal's dorsal fin and saddle patch, taken when it surfaces. Variations such as nicks, scratches, and tears on the dorsal fin and the pattern of white or grey in the saddle patch are sufficient to distinguish Killer Whales from each other. For the well-studied Killer Whales of the northeast Pacific, catalogues have been published with the photograph and name of each Killer Whale. Photo identification has enabled the local population of Killer Whales to be counted each year rather than estimated and has enabled great insight into Killer Whale lifecycles and social structures.")  ceran  thor 18:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There are much better sources for this information than the document you've linked to, which is a Master's thesis. I'll add refs. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 23:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

* Comment: Coverage needs to be expanded regarding the cultural significance of the species in the Pacific Northwest. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Done. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Update: Ref improvement and copyediting is in progress, and I have good sources for expanding taxonomy and cultural significance. I am grateful to reviewers for your constructive comments so far. Please add tags to specific claims needing refs; otherwise I'll aim for a minimum of 1 per paragraph. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Further update: There are no fact tags left at present, and apart from the "Social structure of resident communities" section, which has four uncited paragraphs, only a few isolated paragraphs lack citations. There's still a lot to do though. -- Avenue (talk) 14:09, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I added a few more fact tags, but none of the claims that I challenged are critical information, so it wouldn't hurt to remove them if sources can't be found. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 09:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

**Followup: Note that that sentence is in the lead, and typically we don't need to put refs in the lead, so long as it is referenced in the body of the text, where it should be. DigitalC (talk) 16:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC) [moved] DigitalC (talk) 16:27, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: The following sentence seems overreferenced: "In late 2007, the Killer Whales known as the "southern resident killer whales" were placed on the U.S. Endangered Species list.[6][7][8][9]". Could we prune that down to the best one or two references, or is this a fact that is highly contested? DigitalC (talk) 15:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC) [Pruned] DigitalC (talk) 16:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: I am slightly confused over information regarding the endangered status of the Killer whale, which makes me think that it could be more clear. As posted above, the lead states "In late 2007, the Killer Whales known as the "southern resident killer whales" were placed on the U.S. Endangered Species list". The body states "In 2005, the United States government listed the southern resident community as an endangered population under the Endangered Species Act.", which is unreferenced. One of the references in the lead is from 2004... [corrected] DigitalC (talk) 16:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Also, the lead states "Although the Killer Whale is not considered to be an internationally endangered species", but the body states that the IUCN "[recognizes] that one or more Killer Whale types may actually be separate, endangered species". Are the IUCN not international? DigitalC (talk) 16:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I've tried to clarify it. The lead contained a mixture of statements from before and after the IUCN changed the status from "conservation dependent" to "data deficient", and I can see how the statements could have been seen as contradictory. The message that I'm hoping to communicate is that if you assume killer whales are a single species, they are not endangered. However, as we don't know whether they're a single species or multiple species, we do not have the information to determine whether they are endangered. That is a subtle message. Any help or feedback you can give to make it clearer would be great. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:10, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. Alt text done; thanks. Please do not capitalize "killer whale" or its common-name alternatives such as "blackfish". Reliable sources rarely capitalize these names nowadays. Also, alt text is mostly present (thanks), but it has some problems. Alt text is missing for File:Orcas and penguins cropped.JPG and File:AT3.jpg. A couple of of the phrases cannot be verified by a non-expert who is looking only at the images, and need to be removed or moved to the caption as per WP:ALT; these are "killer whale skeleton in museum" (it's a skeleton, but a non-expert can't tell that it's of a killer whale, or in a museum), "females" (a non-expert can't tell the sex). Some of the alt text descriptions are too sketchy (e.g., "Killer whale at surface"; please include details to explain to the visually impaired reader what's distinctive about these images). Finally, please omit phrases like "photo of" as per WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 22:30, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Reply: If [Since] reliable sources rarely capitalize the name, should the page be moved from Killer Whale to Killer whale? DigitalC (talk) 22:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course. Thanks, I hadn't spotted that. Eubulides (talk) 22:59, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Reply: The page was moved from "Orca" to "Killer Whale" (title case) about a year ago, with the new title being put forward on the grounds that this (with caps) was the common name listed in Wilson and Reeder's Mammal Species of the World, 3rd edition (MSW3), and this was an agreed authority for our mammals project. See Talk:Killer_Whale/Should_the_page_be_at_Orca_or_Killer_Whale.) There is also a current discussion at the cetaceans project about capitalisation of all cetecean names (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cetaceans). Although I would personally prefer it without caps, I don't think the opinions of a few reviewers here should necessarily trump the outcomes of relevant discussions elsewhere. I do think capitalisation in the article should be consistent, and should match whatever title is agreed on. Good points about the alt text. -- Avenue (talk) 14:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The discussions there are leaning towards sentence case, so let's do it. I added a note to Talk:Killer Whale to get the ball rolling. Eubulides (talk) 16:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the alt text is now okay. -- Avenue (talk) 14:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it looks good now. Eubulides (talk) 04:47, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

It appears that someone is messing around with the article, under feeding there are two references to killer whales eating humans as main prey. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.5.39.83 (talk)
 * That was vandalism. It survived an hour and 10 minutes before being reverted. -- Avenue (talk) 21:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Featured article criterion of concern are referencing, incomplete/inconsistently formatted citations, prose  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars photo poll '')  07:46, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * A lot of progress has been made and a few things still need to be done. I've put a to-do list at Talk:Killer whale. Avenue has done some really painstaking work and I see he/she is still actively working on it. I've been unusually busy lately but I plan to work on the outstanding items this week. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * How is progress coming on this? Dana boomer (talk) 20:42, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Almost there. The number of inline citations has approximately doubled, all or nearly all references are complete, prose has been improved in many places, and comprehensiveness issues have been addressed. We're just fixing some details now. Shouldn't take much longer :) Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:25, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Image review - all images appear to be okay - many are public domain by virtue of coming from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - though less clear about this one: File:Tysfjord orca 1.jpg and its source. Tom B (talk) 13:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The original uploader of that image, Pcb21, is the person who got this article its FA star in 2004. He claimed to own the image's copyright, and I think that as an administrator he would know what that meant. So unless there is something specific that throws doubt on his claim, I don't see a problem here. -- Avenue (talk) 14:12, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Tom B (talk) 13:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - Plenty of inline cites now and prose is excellent. A very interesting, engaging and fact-packed article. I learned a lot and had fun; what more can be asked of an FA? --mav (Urgent FACs/FARs/PRs) 02:11, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. I believe all concerns raised in the FAR have been addressed, and we've also made improvements that weren't called for specifically by the FAR reviewers. Terrific work has been done on this article, and teamwork has made it fun! Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. There's always more improvements that can be made, but I think it now meets the criteria. -- Avenue (talk) 08:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Not yet I've gone through and fixed some, but there are still hyphens instead of dashes, inconsistency in bracketing the years of pubn, use of p and pp for multiple pages, citation is consistent yet. Also there's overlinking everywhere, puget, BC and WA are linked repeatedly, that stuff needs a check, and some of the short paragraphs have to be restructured properly  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll )  07:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Please ping me when YellowMonkey's concerns have been addressed and I will have a look. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 12:45, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It looks like p. and pp. have been addressed. I noticed that Wikilinks to locations were reduced. SHould they be reduced to a single instance or is a second acceptable when they are way downCptnono (talk) 12:49, 1 April 2010 (UTC)?

Keep. Just a few things I noticed:
 * WP:OVERLINK: "ocean", for heaven's sake? Do we need a link to "culture", which isn't specific to non-humans, and is therefore of dictionary function?
 * "preferred prey items"—can "items" be dropped?
 * "signaled"—this is unclear: researchers using morse code on the open seas?
 * That accursed convert template: "from 6–8 metres (20–26 ft)". This is against what MoS says about preceding prepositions, although it's OK for the conversion, I think. "from 6 to 8 metres (20–26 ft)". The whole para needs a look.
 * Dorsal fin pic: the caption and the image description page are coy about who took the pic, what research party it was a part of, and what the NOAA is. Tony   (talk)  13:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The accursed template in question actually accommodates the "from ... to" format, as this edit proves. It is strictly a matter of how the template is used—though, from the aspect of respecting civility, it may be better to curse the template rather than the editor who (mis)uses it. I agree about keeping the dash in the parenthetical conversion, and the template supports both versions, namely 6 to 8 metres (20 to 26 ft) and 6 to 8 metres (20–26 ft). I wasn't sure about the conversion of the female's weight; it is the same format, but I think the to makes reading easier with the two alternative units. Waltham, The Duke of 18:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * On the dorsal fin pic, I think if anyone is being coy here, it is the NOAA. I have looked around a bit and can only find it in this gallery, with no information about the photographer or the research party. I have added the NOAA's full name to the image description. -- Avenue (talk) 22:14, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep because aquatic beasts are cool per large amount of work done. Minimial issues such as overlink can easily be taken care of without compromising FA quality. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 15:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep over the line. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:01, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.