Talk:Augustin Pyramus de Candolle/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Philcha (talk) 20:24, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, C1ock122. I'll mark Y comments when I think they're resolved, highlight N any that are unresolved when most others are done, and strike out any of comments that I later decide are mistaken. I'll sign each of my comments, so we can see who said what - please do the same.

I'll mark the review {{inuse}} when I'm working on it, as edit conflicts are frustrating. If you think I've forgotten to remove {{inuse}}, please leave a message at my Talk page. Please free to use {{inuse}} with your own signature when you're working.

I'll read the article through first, then give comments. --Philcha (talk) 20:24, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Coverage

Y No obvious gaps. --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Structure

• Y The section "Legacy" seems to me to be a mixture of a few types of content: the taxa "the great man" (to distinguish him from his descendants) named; contributions to biological theory ("nature's war", morphological and physiological characteristics, chronobiology); author abbreviation DC (if I can the source, as the link gives no help); descendants, which would be in a "Later life" section along with the great man's marriage and death.

• Restructured. The remnants of the legacy section seems disjointed though...suggestions? Also, here's a source for the DC author abbreviation: http://www.ipni.org/ipni/idAuthorSearch.do?id=16855-1. Looks like the reference URL is coming from the {{botanist}} in the article, and that template doesn't seem to have parameters to change the URL. C1ock122 (talk) 18:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• I think the para "Candolle spent the rest of his life in an attempt to elaborate and complete his natural system of botanical classification ..." should be part of "Career" as it describes specific parts of his works, following his move to Geneva. --Philcha (talk) 19:09, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
• OTOH the influence of "Nature's war" on Darwin, and de Candolle's influence by being "among the first to recognize the difference between the morphological and physiological characteristics of organs ..." (to the end of that para) looks good for a "Legacy" section. --Philcha (talk) 19:09, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
• I know nothing about chronobiology, but this also looks like "Legacy", as there seems to a succesion starting with Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan and Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau, running through the work of de Candolle and later researchers, until 1972 when Robert Moore and Irving Zucker confirmed the internal pacemaker. --Philcha (talk) 19:09, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• I've shuffled around the paragraphs a bit more, and created subsections for the paragraphs moving to the "Legacy" section. C1ock122 (talk) 16:01, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• At first I was surprised to see "Legacy" after "Later life", but your order is logical - his soul goes marching on. --Philcha (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Early life

• Y "A descendant of one of the ancient families of Provence in France, he was born in Geneva due to the relocation of his ancestors at the end of the 16th century as a result of religious persecution" looks clumsy to me. How about e.g. "He was born in Geneva, to which his ancestors moved ...". --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• Reworded. C1ock122 (talk) 20:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• How about e.g. His family descended from ..., but moved ..." --Philcha (talk) 11:20, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• That sounds better; tweaked. C1ock122 (talk) 13:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks. --Philcha (talk) 16:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y I think "Despite being in poor health as a child ... talent for writing fine poetry" is long and clumsy. --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
• Y "It was Vaucher who first inspired de Candolle" could be combined with the previous sentence. --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• What you've done is fine. --Philcha (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Career in botany

• Y IMO the 2 sentences "In 1796 he moved to Paris. His first productions ... third edition of the Flore française (1803-1815)" are clumsy, and the 2nd is to long. How about e.g. ""In 1796 he moved to Paris, where his first productions ... and Astragalogia (1802). These brought him to the notice of ..." --Philcha (talk)
  • I see you've re-structured. The new version is fine. --Philcha (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
• Y Should "Principes élémentaires de botanique" be in italics rather than quotes? --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
• Y Can you explain "artificial" (with a citation) in "artificial, Linnaean method"? Looking at The development of biological systematics: Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, nature, and the natural system, we may need to read from p. 79 to about p. 90. I admit I'm more at home with cladistics that with any pre-cladistic taxonomy. --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Is "... they are discrete, not continuous". If it is, fine. --Philcha (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I found a decently good explanation online and added it as a citation. Looks like it's not just about discrete/continuous, but more so on the arbitrary (hence "artificial") features and characteristics chosen by Linnaeus. C1ock122 (talk) 20:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Nice work. --Philcha (talk) 11:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
• Y The whole para "In 1804 he was granted the degree of doctor of medicine by the medical faculty of Paris, ... newly founded chair of botany in the faculty of sciences in the same university" is an exact copy of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition. While AFAIK that Britannica is out of copyright (? 1911), such wholesale copying IMO is Wikipedia:Plagiarism. Please rephrase. --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• IMO the plagiarism is fixed. But at 2 points 2 short sentences could be combined and fit well:
• Y "In 1804, Candolle published his Essai sur les propriétés médicales des plantes. That same year, Candolle was granted a doctor of medicine degree by the medical faculty of Paris." --Philcha (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Combined. C1ock122 (talk) 20:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y "In 1807 he was appointed professor of botany in the medical faculty of the University of Montpellier; he later assumed the newly founded chair of botany in 1810." --Philcha (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Tweaked. C1ock122 (talk) 20:34, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. --Philcha (talk) 11:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y The current refs 2 and 5 appear to be the same. If I've not gone nuts, please fix the duplication. --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• Looks like one of my classmates addressed this. The refs weren't the exact same; one indicated a normal citation while the other indicated a copy-paste from Encyclopedia Britannica (see {{1911}}). C1ock122 (talk) 18:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y AFAIK the source does not say "termed the De Candolle system". All it says is "a new classification, outlining the important principles". --Philcha (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC))

• Reworded. C1ock122 (talk) 20:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• It now says "De Candolle system", but the source says nothing like that. --Philcha (talk) 11:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• I found quite a few citations referring to it as "de Candolle's system", but nothing more official. Removed. C1ock122 (talk) 13:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks. --Philcha (talk) 16:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y More plagiarism at "The results of his labours were initially published ... the chosen, extensive scale" - the antique phrasing is a give-away. How about e.g. "His result were published ... but after completing ... he found he could not finish the project on such a large scale." --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• Reworded. C1ock122 (talk) 20:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks. --Philcha (talk) 11:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y Yet more plagiarism at "Accordingly, in 1824 he began a less extensive work ...". This one's yours. --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
• Y At "Even so, he was able to characterize over one hundred families of plants, helping to lay the empirical basis of general botany", the citation:
  • does not give all the authors. --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
  • gives pp. 126-139, that's 14 pages - too much for the brief sentence in the article. Please make the ref more precise. --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
  • gives a URL that is just a sales page, showing none of the content. This URL is misleading. --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• Fixed. C1ock122 (talk) 18:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• What did you fix? E.g. History of Botany still shows me just a sales page. --Philcha (talk) 19:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• How odd. Google Books shows me page 127 for the same URL. This might be because of copyright issues; Google Books will let users from certain countries/locations see the text, but will block out others. Anyways, I've switched it to a Wikisource URL. C1ock122 (talk) 16:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Nice work. --Philcha (talk) 11:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y No citation at "In 1826, Candolle was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences". --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• I hunted for a citation and came up empty. I'll look again later, but I've removed the sentence for now. C1ock122 (talk) 18:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• A pity, good hunting later. --Philcha (talk) 19:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y We'll look at "After passing several years in delicate health, he died at Geneva on 9 September 1841" after we resolve the structure of the section "Legacy". --Philcha (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• Sentence reworded. C1ock122 (talk) 18:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y I see you've added a new 1st para in this section. Nice. ----Philcha (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
• Y WP:CITE asks editors to use a consistent approach. The point is that at some point one needs to starting including page numbers for multiple refs in a book or large journal article. I don't know an official threshold for a "large journal article", and I start giving pages at 11. At present you use 2 methods, one for Desmond & Moore, and the other at e.g. <ref>{{cite book|last=Allaby|first=Michael|title=Plants: Food, Medicine, and the Green Earth|year=2010|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=0816061025|page=87}}</ref>. All the methods I know have pros and cons:
  • Some editors write e.g. <ref>Desmond & Moore, pp. 123-124</ref> with no link, so that the reader must page down manually to see the cited work, and then manually get back the place in the article..
  • Others editors do what you've done with Desmond & Moore, e.g. <ref>Desmond & Moore, pp. 124-124</ref>, so readers can click to find the source and ALT-previous to go back. That may the easiest to refit to an existing article. --Philcha (talk) 22:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
  • At present I use Wikipedia:Cite#List-defined_references (LDR for short) with {{r}} - the latters shows page number (or range) in the text, and generates a ref that links directly to the source, e.g. {{r|DesmondMoore|page1=123-124. The master ref goes in the list and is e.g. <ref name"DesmondMoore">{{cite | ... }}</ref>. See Maevia inclemens for an example, it's fairly short. Advantages: the readers sees the page number(s) immediately and the source with 1 click; the master list can be ordered however you like, and so far I use alphabetic order of "name=..."; you can use this for works with multiple page numbers and simple ref tags where there's need to for multiple page numbers (in this the cite must have the page number / range), then refit if you later find you want a different page (range) in the same work. Disadvantage: little blue page numbers in the text. Debatable: you get if the text asks for a ref thats not in the list, or the list has a ref not used in the text; but the latter case I enclose the ref in HTML comments, in case I remember why I wanted it.
  • In the Sfn system (see Wikipedia:Cite#Shortened_footnotes), CITEREF puts a full citation in a list in "References" and {{sfn}}one uses a citation in the text - in priciple like LDR, but the details as different. Advantages: no page numbers in the text, they're hidden in each use of {{sfn}}; an internal sort groups sets of identical pages in the same work so that had e.g. each use page X has the same ref number in the text and uses of pages Y-Z share another ref number. Disadvantages: it needs an extra click to reach the details of the cited work, compared with LDR and {{r|DesmondMoore|page1=123-124; and in a few situation you may also need to use <ref (name=...)</ref>. Example: Brachiopod --Philcha (talk) 19:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
  • The Harvard citation templates work in a similar way to the Sfn system (see Wikipedia:Cite#Shortened_footnotes again), but I've not used these. --Philcha (talk)
    • Citation system restructured; I went with the Sfn system. C1ock122 (talk) 20:48, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• Y You use Scientific papers of Asa Gray: Selected by Charles Sprague Sargent pp. 300-320 in 4 points, please give page number or small range for each. --Philcha (talk) 17:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Looks like the page numbers were off. Fixed. C1ock122 (talk) 06:36, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Legacy

• Y The cite for "DC" should use the most specific URL, not the home page nor just the surname "de Candolle", as there are 4. --Philcha (talk) 19:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• Fixed. C1ock122 (talk) 16:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
• Thanks. --Philcha (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y Instead of "... named after the Candolle family", would "... named after de Candolle and his descendants" be slightly more accurate - excluding his siblings, cousins, etc.? --Philcha (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Good catch. Fixed. C1ock122 (talk) 21:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks. --Philcha (talk) 11:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Dead links and DAB pages

• Y Links check OK. --Philcha (talk) 06:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
• http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/dablinks.py?page=Augustin_Pyramus_de_Candolle DAB links OK. --Philcha (talk) 06:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Images

• Y The portrait of dC complies with all requiremnts. --Philcha (talk) 06:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
• Y The taxobox says dC working in agronomy, but I see nothing about that in the main text. --Philcha (talk) 06:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Added. C1ock122 (talk) 14:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
    • You've added that in the lead, but nothing in the main text - the the lead must only summarise the main text. --Philcha (talk) 15:15, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Your citation (Emerson 1842) is excellent, but this content and the citation must be in the main body of the article. --Philcha (talk) 20:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
        • Added to the end of the "Career in botany" section. C1ock122 (talk) 05:23, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Lead

• Y The 1 para is a very good summary of his contributions to botany. Can you please add 2 paras of similar size about his career and family - then I think this will be a very good article. --Philcha (talk) 06:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Done. C1ock122 (talk) 15:09, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I did couple of minor edits, and hope you don't mind - in particular, I didn't like "dabbled" as it looks slightly deprecating, and I'd guess dC was as thorough in these fields as well. --Philcha (talk) 08:42, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Result

I've enjoyed this article, and am very pleased to say that this article meets the Good Article criteria: it provides good coverage, is neutral and well-referenced, is clearly-written, complies with the parts of WP:MOS required for a GA and uses an appropriate images that has a good caption and which complies with WP's policies on images. Many thanks for the work you've put into this, and for your responses to my comments - it's been a pleasure working with you.--Philcha (talk) 08:42, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

If you've got 2 or more articles through GA reviewers, please try to review as many articles as you have nominated for GA review. --Philcha (talk) 08:42, 18 May 2011 (UTC)