Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Natural selection/archive1

Natural selection

Is a GA already. Original contributors have become inactive, but it's close enough that I'll nominate. If you have any small fixes, you may very well have to do them yourselves. Just being honest here. If you don't want to fix things, a yes/no answer is probably appropriate. - Samsara (talk · contribs) 17:52, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Has this had a peer review yet? That's generally a preferred first step before going straight to FAC. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A peer review will make little difference since the article is not being actively edited by anyone. Regards, Samsara (talk · contribs) 21:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there's no one who's going to edit the article, it's not going to improve. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did you read the nomination? - Samsara (talk · contribs) 21:45, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment far too much unreferenced text for my liking. Sandy (Talk) 21:32, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object. Per above (refs, PR). In 'Social theory' see alsos in text to social darwinism and sociocolutural evolution are not very good style; I also have a problem with statement that sociocultural evolution discusses evololution of societes as analogoues to evolution of species; while some theories of socev are like this, other explore quite different models (Morgan, Durkheim, White, Marx - their models can hardly be applied to biological evolution, for example).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 04:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've just done some fairly substantial text reorganization, with very little change in content. The article was very strangely organized - there were effectively four "introduction" sections, "overview" was the 4th heading, the example came before any other discussion, and there were effectively two history sections. I think the content is fundamentally sound but it badly needs a copyedit (it reads like the original author was not a native English speaker) and there are sentences with an odd essayish tone ('not wanting to be scooped', 'potentially embarrassing situation', etc).

On the matter of citations - I disagree with any objection based on pure citation density rather than identification of specific statements or even paragraphs that need citations. For example, most of the "genetical theory" section is standard textbook material. However, the referencing here is rather uneven (leftovers from prior edit wars?) - of the article's 35 footnoted references, at least 7 are in support of specific terminological usages, which in general the article spends too much time on.

I'm willing to do some work on this article but I can't promise that it'll be quick enough for this FAC. Opabinia regalis 03:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment the lead is too short. --Peta 23:53, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object If you don't need to address objections, I don't need to read the article to oppose. Why should I waste my time looking for problems that no one will correct? --Ideogram 14:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because you're as lazy a bastard as everybody else around here. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FAC should not be a process for looking for people to do your work. If I don't need to address objections, I may as well nominate a dozen articles at once. This is clearly discouraged. --Ideogram 15:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And this is clearly a special case as you would have understood if you'd read the nomination. I'm not a slave to your whims, and I nominated this article in the faith that the community could do what few things would have been necessary to bring this article up to scratch. As it stands, I see you as pissing on the "graves" of contributors who put a lot of work into this article and left out of exhaustion with the lack of appreciation, whereof you are putting up a perfect display. Nobody forced you to comment. Your words have made it less likely that these sorely missed contributors will return. Come back when you've learnt how to behave yourself! - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nor am I slave to your whims. I am free to vote as I wish. You do not own this process, and you do not have any say over who is allowed to participate. --Ideogram 15:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hang on, you're talking to me about process when you didn't even read the article before you opposed? I think not, Sir. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This debate is entirely pointless. I'm not going to respond further to you, and I'm not going to change my vote. --Ideogram 15:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

:) - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

:-x --Ideogram 16:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. And without a logical reason, no one has to accept your !vote either. pschemp | talk 16:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the end it is up to Raul. Wikipedia is not a democracy.

But, if you insist, I will give you a reason. Without someone actively sponsoring the article, it will inevitably decay as new editors come along and edit it, even if they have the best of intentions. What is FA today will hit FAR tomorrow, and a lot of effort will have been wasted. --Ideogram 16:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And indeed I was talking about Raul. You seem to be implying that an article needs an owner in order to be an FA, yet that is contrary to WP:OWN.pschemp | talk 19:08, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not interested in continuing this argument. --Ideogram 19:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'm interested again.

What I look for in a FAC article is not just the article itself, it is someone who is willing to work with me in improving the article. There is no such person here (or was not at time of nomination). --Ideogram 02:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let's do it. I need sleep right now, though. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 03:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Text is fairly dense. I am not even through the General principles section and have to concentrate to understand. This may be unavoidable in a technical subject, however. --Ideogram 03:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Directionality of selection" This subsection is making my eyes glaze over. This is going to be a real problem.

I have to stop here. This article is way too technical for the average reader; you will get a lot of traffic from people trying to understand the Creationism vs. Evolution debate and they will be totally lost here.

Oppose --Ideogram 03:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I have written most of the top halve of the original text. It is an extreme difficult topic to cover well, and the reshuffeling by moving the example down has made it more difficult to understand for most people. The example was with very carefull reasoning placed at the top, precisely because this is a fucking complex topic to cover in a good way. As such, the coverage at current is reasonable, but not featured level. The lead has to be expanded, it is correct for the individual level, but other levels of selection are lacking. Several pieces have been rewritten after I left the project and not for the better, but were used to push certain POV's and resulted in the duplication of the main thing several times, but without actually improving it. I have taken a shot at a better lead, see User:KimvdLinde/Natural selection. If we can create the right context to work at the article and that is based on current understanding of the topic, in good harmony, I am willing to give it another shot to get this article at featured level, but I refuse to continue the discussion whether darwins definition should be used primarily. He bases his idea on differential survival, while modern insights use differential reproduction (And yes, that is a fundamental difference, you can decrease your curvival as long as you increase your reproduction sufficiently to compensate for the loss at he survival side). -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Hard to make out what the previous reviewer is on about; please avoid obscene language, even if used in a non-obscene way. I'd lean towards Support, but I agree that the lead is inadequate and that more referencing is required (not every statement, but a smattering of references that point to where readers can verify and/or follow up the general gist of the article). Tony 02:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]