Talk:Fennec fox/GA2
GA Review
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Nominator: Wolverine X-eye (talk · contribs) 21:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Reviewer: Larrayal (talk · contribs) 01:51, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Hello Wolverine, I've looked at this article, and I don't think its at GA-level. At all. Mainly, I think this article is much too short considering the scope of the topic and available sources.
The lead section contains information that is not sourced or even included in the body of the article, such as the kidney adaptations, the fur trade, and the lifespan in the wild. Please make sure that the lead reflecs the tekst of the body, and expand on all topics that you include in the lead within the body of the article with the necessary sources.
The taxonomy section is frankly lacking. Nothing is said on the exact relationships of V. zerda with other Vulpes species. A phylogenetic tree would be a good addition here, and most are easily available. There is absolutely no reason to include information on V. riffautae, or V. skinneri. This is about V. zerda. Please only include information closely related to V. zerda to this article in the future. Including more fossil species would be confusing to the common reader. It appears to me that you got much of it from the Vulpes article, but it is clearly not valid here. The description is well-written but could do with more information. In my opinion, some information on its postcranial skeletal anatomy and desert adaptations would be required to reach GA status. The distribution and habitat section has the same issues, with the only source used being the not-academically published, not peer-reviewed IUCN website. If this webpage provides at least some sources, none of the statements used in the article are sourced. The behaviour and ecology section is good enough, though the lead of that section is unneeded and most could be put in their own subsections.
On the disease section, almost everything on the canine distemper virus infection is paraphrased from Woo et al., 2010. This also can't be generalized for all captive fennec foxes, as some are bred in captivity; the paper focuses on the autopsy of animals captured in the wild. The predator section in particular is lackluster; I don't see mentions of caracal in that part of the article; "nomads" need to be made more specific in this case, as there are quite a few in that area; salukis in particular are traditionally bred in the Middle East, rather than North Africa; as some other sources used in the article mention that attributions from the Middle East likely represent young Rüppel's foxes. The threat section doesn't cover all threats mentioned in the sources used in the article. Conservation section is also probably too short ; In culture section should probably be much more expanded.
The sources are generally fine, but are dramatically underused. The IUCN source, though useful, is uncorrectly used several times over where more precise and academic sources are available and preferred. More sources than the formal description and Asa et al. 2004 would be an improvement, but Asa et al. 2004 is not even used to its fullest in the article's current state. Please expand on all the topics covered in that article, review the sources of this article, not just their abstracts, and include them here.
The placement of the images is quite strange ; the skull should be in the description section ; I don't really see the use of the Two fennec foxes image on that part of the article ; the taxobox image is good, but could be used in the behaviour section, with more visible feet and tail ; on that tangent, there are a lot of great images on Commons which should be used for an improved article.
While there are few issues with the prose, some phrasings are strange and need to be improved. The nominator also seems to have had only a small impact on the prose of the article overall, despite the frankly massive amount of edits done. Adding onto this, all of these edits are based almost fully on sentences in the abstracts of the sourced articles. Fennec fox gives 2700 results on Google Scholar; Vulpes zerda gives 2940; I think more than 30 sources could easily be found. There's no copyright violation that I could detect, but some heavy paraphrasing could do with being reworded; the article has been relatively stable, but it was nominated mere hours after the nominator started editing it, with all 48 edits happening in the six hours prior to GA nomination. Edits made by the nominator are, in my opinion, not sufficient to warrant GA status. Due to all issues listed, to me this article does not seem to be near ready for undergoing a GA review. I suggest adding more information from both present and new sources, and potentially running it through peer review beforehand, and once it passes that, resubmitting it to GA.
- @Larrayal: I think this review is a bit overzealous. First off, this article is near GA-status and most of the concerns you listed are trivial to say the least. Regarding the lead concerns, I've addressed them with no issues whatsoever. Over to Taxonomy, you were right in that I did not add enough information about their connectivity to other Vulpes species. I've done so now. However, your comments about the fossil species are completely wrong. The information I copied from Vulpes are entirely relevant in this article as they discuss the common ancestors of fennecs and other African fox species. We now arrive at distribution, and whatever you're on about that's a you problem. I've used the IUCN source for well over 2 years with no issues, that is until I met you. The IUCN is a reliable source and so I do not have to explain why it was included. There is also nothing wrong with the canine distemper information but since you have such a problem with it being generalized I've changed the wording a bit. For the predation part, I removed the caracal information since it was not supported by the cite, but other than that I do not see the subpar part of this section. Moving to threats, I added a little something but that's it. There is not a whole lot to add since the global population is relatively safe. The conversation material part is appropriate, as the conversation of this species largely focuses on captivity. And lastly, the Cultural significance section is that small, in large part due to the fact that there is virtually no information on the cultural depictions of fennecs. If you do find something, please let me know.
- What I'm seeing in the GA progress below is questionable. Like I don't get why I'm being failed on reliable sources. Seems a bit harsh in my opinion. I'm also being failed on stability even though you said above that the article is stable. Just wow. In addition, you also fail me on the grounds of not staying focused and providing broad coverage? This seems sus to me. Is this all about the message I left on your friend's talk page? You don't do much reviewing and judging by this review you also don't seem to be an experienced reviewer. This review has been unfair and your judgment on multiple aspects are off by a long shot.
- Finishing off my comment, the broadness issue is unsubstantiated. I've done my research and included as much information as possible. Not much is known about the species, hence the relatively small size. And most of the fennec fox or Vulpes zerda results on Google Scholar are mere mentions. With that being said, I think you need to reconsider your decision here. ✟WolveríneX-eye✟ 11:11, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
- PS: About the description section lacking desert adaptation information; if you read the section carefully, you'll notice that it is literally riddled with such information – not that that's a bad thing. ✟WolveríneX-eye✟ 11:40, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
- This article is nowhere near GA article. It is messy and critically incomplete.
- The section you added on apparent relationships between V. riffautae and V. zerda now falls entirely under WP:OR ; de Bonis et al., the description paper, points out the distinct autapomorphies separating it from the modern genera ; Bartolini-Lucenti and Malapeira 2020 is to my understanding reporting the same information on its size. The information copied from Vulpes serves no purpose here, as they can as simply be read in the Vulpes article ; they don't concern fennec at all. If you used the IUCN source on several other articles, then I'm afraid they will have to be reviewed once again, as the IUCN website likely does not represent peer-reviewed sources ; ideally, they should be limited to what the IUCN is about, preservation and level of endangerment. It is a reliable source on that point. On other points, however, it only repeats the information found in other publications ; when it is not sourced in the IUCN website, it is not an information that can be put on an article, as the IUCN is likely not the primary source. This could maybe hold true for C-class, maybe B-class articles ; this is a GA review, academic precision should be expected here. The predation section is quite sketchy, honestly ; why does the lead tell that the Verreaux's eagle-owl is its main predator, but the section names the Pharoah's eagle-owl instead ? And why is the mention that "nomads" hunt it with salukis not expanded upon, or in the Threat section ? Dog hunting is definitely not listed among the threats, should it be ? I did not say that the Conservation section is inappropriate, but it is too short, and should focus firstly on its preservation in the wild, secondarily on its preservation in zoos. The pet trade should go in threats (for animals taken in the wild) or in its own section (for animals bred in captivity), as it has nothing to do with conservation in this particular case. If it does, it probably needs to be expanded upon, to make that clear to the readers. Even the French version of the article has more information presented ; although it has several other issues too.
- The main reason why I failed it on reliable sources is because the IUCN source is not usable in the context it is used upon, and that the article seems to revolve around a single source, Asa et al. 2004 is good but likely not the only source you could use on its skeletal anatomy, fur variations, etc...
- While the article seems stable enough, force is to note that you only started editing it hours before submitting it to GA, and the amount of edits needed to port this article to GA status makes it not stable enough to seriously review. Maybe, after a few weeks of work, it would pass, but it was submitted before these, and as such any critique made now is likely to not be relevant once the article is properly finished. 27 edits have been made between yesterday and today. I don't know what friend you are talking about, I don't have many here and I don't recall seeing your name on Talk pages ; I read a lot of Talk pages on my spare time, so please educate me on this incident ; I got in here reading the noticeboard ; regardless, ad hominem attacks will not help this article to pass due review process. This article still can be improved ; this needs work, this needs time, I don't think that it can be passed to Good Article in its current state. I don't think not much is known about the species, considering that it is an extant species not only really common in zoos, but also present in the pet trade. Once again I want to point out that "Vulpes zerda" gives 1140 cues on Google Scholar and "Fennec fox" 1820. I don't doubt that you have done your research, but more research is still needed. I do agree that I was too harsh on focus, I'll pass that ; however the original research parts need to go.
- Finally, on the things added today : the "group of eight 'desert fox'" does not seem to hold any phylogenetic value. The article sourced is a book on the red fox ; more precise sources are needed. The Rüppel's fox is now pretty generally considered to be the sister taxa of the red fox, while the fennec and Blanford's sits as an early diverging clade. V. riffautae can't be an ancestor of V. zerda and V. rueppellii without also being an ancestor of all other Vulpes species, which probably should mean that the subject must be treated in the Vulpes article. Finally, in the threat section, the IUCN source that you use clearly states "The impact of major oil field development on local populations has not been assessed." Although I don't disagree with the statement, this shows the limits of the IUCN webpage, and means that oil exploitation probably shouldn't be listed as a direct threat.
- Also, please in the future use Edit summaries when editing ; 27 edits of varying sizes without a proper edit summary certainly don't help the review process. Larrayal (talk) 00:48, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Larrayal: Well you clearly show your inexperience in your latest reply once again. You failed to acknowledge some of the points I've raised which seems sketchy to me. Your whole rant about IUCN seems to be a you problem, so I won't look into that. And your baseless accusations of ad hominem attacks and original research just shows a lack of assuming good faith. Perhaps startling is your extremely harsh criticism of this article. While I have no problem working with you to help fix this article, courtesy should be shown on your part to make this process beneficial for both parties and the encyclopedia as a whole. I used to adopt this extremely harsh approach when reviewing articles, but I've since realized that that helps no one and instead drive editors away. You also say that more research is needed but you haven't specified what. If there is a section that could do with more information it's the "In captivity" one. Besides that, everything else seems to be in order. Also, why am I being failed on pictures and MOS? If that is not harsh, I don't know what is. Lastly, I would like to point out that this article does not qualify for a WP:QUICKFAIL; do see that page for more information. And that concludes my comment; hopefully the reviewer will now notice their mistake. ✟WolveríneX-eye✟ 07:02, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- Upon reviewing the Taxonomy section you were right to say that they were not directly linked to those fossils. That's a misinterpretation of the source on my part. But I still fail to see how this information is irrelevant, when they are a part of the Vulpes genus. I couldn't locate a source that points to a definite V. zerda ancestor, and so I came to the conclusion that the Vulpes information is entirely appropriate. Maybe if you find a source, you can point it out to me, but until then, the Taxonomy is OK as is. ✟WolveríneX-eye✟ 08:13, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- This is not a review of my quality as a reviewer, but of the quality of the article, and sorry, it does not meet Good Articles standards. If it worked in the past with different reviewers, maybe blame them for not being thorough enough, but it is not my fault. The IUCN website does seem like a reliable source, and the work of the IUCN is commendable, but it shouldn't be hard to verify the bibliography of the webpage and check if all informations presented there are available in other publications. You nominated this article mere hours after starting working on it, it is not surprising that it is still not holding up to GA standards. The article wasn't to standards before you started editing on it, and the edits you did on it, though substantial at least in number, are yet not enough to warrant it a place in GA. As I said, all sections need improvement, but more specially Threats, Conservation and In culture. You still have not removed the information pasted from Vulpes in the Taxonomy section, and there is not yet a good rationale about its inclusion. Now, seeing on your userpage that you are taking a break from editing until the 15th of February, I think the best course of action will be to fail the review of this article until you come back from your break and improve substantially the article. Happy holidays ! Larrayal (talk) 02:20, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
Good Article review progress box
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