Talk:Island
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Island article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1Auto-archiving period: 30 days ![]() |
![]() | Island has been listed as one of the Geography and places good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: July 14, 2024. (Reviewed version). |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||
|
![]() | This article was selected as the article for improvement on 29 April 2013 for a period of one week. |
![]() | This article was selected as the article for improvement on 27 February 2023 for a period of one week. |
![]() | A fact from Island appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 August 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
GA Review
[edit]The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
- This review is transcluded from Talk:Island/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Nominator: ForksForks (talk · contribs) 12:54, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 08:05, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Comments
[edit]I'll have a go at this one.
- The 'Definition' spends a lot of time on continents, especially Australia, basically off-topic. Please cut it down.
- Done
- The 'Etymology' is slightly backwards, as we wait until the last sentence to discover the cognates, complete with an apologetic "is actually a cognate", as if Swedish were somehow a less-valued language, very odd. Please restructure so that we have the real etymology first, all of it; and then (I suggest a separate paragraph) the false etymology, trimmed to reduce repetition (the 3 mentions "false ... incorrect ... etymologically unrelated ..." are all synonyms, and we don't need the wikilink on "etymologically" either).
- This is an artifact of the previous crufty version of the article. Should have rewritten but was scared to touch, thank you!
- 'Geology' alludes to atolls in paragraph 1 but doesn't introduce them until paragraph 3. Suggest rearrange.
- Attempted to make this make more sense
- The 'See also' list of lists is excessive; since 'List of islands' is actually a misnomer for 'List of lists of islands', all the links to other lists of islands (listed there in that list of lists) should be removed as duplicates. 'Island country' could be a 'further' link for 'Political significance', and again remove it from 'See also'. (Not sure that 'Political significance' is quite the right heading, maybe 'Island nations and territories'.)
- Done
- 'Island biogeography' and 'Island ecology' are obviously important subtopics, and they are in fact briefly discussed (without naming them!) in 'Life on islands'. Please name and link them there (and remove them from 'See also'); I'd suggest you restructure the chapter with subsections with these as headings and "main" links.
- Done
- 'Life on islands' should discuss and illustrate Island gigantism in a short subsection (it's part of Island biogeography); there is good material with sources to select from in that article, which should get a 'main' link. The subsection should mention Foster's rule and Insular dwarfism too. Perhaps the section should be named 'The island rule' to cover both gigantism and the lesser-known dwarfism.
- Done
- 'Life on islands' should also mention the species–area relationship in an island context.
- Done
- The last paragraph of 'Life on islands' is evidently about 'Conservation of endemic island species'. Obviously the concept of endemism needs to be discussed (populations evolve in isolation [French isolé="put on an island"], become new local i.e. endemic species), and then the conservation of endemic species can be explained in that context. I think you'll need a 'further' link to endemism. From there, you should discuss dispersal (by flying, swimming, floating on rafts, blowing in the wind...) and hence the idea of diverging evolution on island chains or groups (adaptive radiation): and that will be the place to introduce Darwin and natural selection. So the section will need a bit of rearrangement - I think you will be able to reuse most of the existing text, but with this logic and a new set of subsection headings (maybe 'Endemism', 'Dispersal', 'Evolution on island groups', 'Darwin, the Galapagos, and natural selection').
- Done
- The subsection on 'Conservation of endemic island species' could be placed separately alongside '[Impact of] climate change': both sections affect life on islands, and both have human causes, so they will fit well together. There seems no reason to place one in the 'Humans' chapter and the other one outside it really, so perhaps both should go in a new 'Threats' chapter.
- Done
- The 'Islands portal' adds nothing to the article; here the reader gets links in precise and explained context, there the reader gets random links with no logic to them. Suggest we remove it.
- Done, I just wanted to avoid making possibly contentious changes, but I agree with you.
- Not sure why a modern article needs to list the short and outdated 1911 EB text, either.
- Done
- Earwig flags one page as a close match (48.5%). It looks to me as if they have directly copied Wikipedia, and indeed they mention us shortly afterwards, so no worries there.
- "Many island nations ... generally have little land" - could be improved. Having little land on an island is definitional (islands are smaller than continents), so no need to hesitate about it.
- done
- "Bananal Island" - please add that it's in the Tocantins of Brazil.
- Done
Images
[edit]- Suggest the caption for Kansai Airport has the city name "Osaka" added.
- Done
- Similarly, the Outer Banks caption should add that it's off the East Coast of the United States.
- Done
- Several captions just describe their images, without saying why they are relevant to the article. E.g. "A tropical beach in Malapascua, the Philippines": well, so what? The caption needs to say "Tourists are attracted in large numbers to tropical beaches, such as to ...". The same goes for several other captions, so please check all of them.
- Interesting, that was the idea I had for how captions were meant to be, but will switch. This is good info.
- All the images are on Commons and plausibly licensed.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Hawaii_hotspot_cross-sectional_diagram.jpg/260px-Hawaii_hotspot_cross-sectional_diagram.jpg)
- The 'Formation in oceans' section would benefit from an image explaining the formation of island chains.
- Done
- The kangaroo/Australia image is basically off-topic for this article. There is no shortage of endemism images on Commons, so please replace the image with something more suitable, such as of island gigantism to accompany the suggested text more closely.
- Done
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Finchadaptiveradiation.png/220px-Finchadaptiveradiation.png)
- The Galápagos turtle image is a possible choice for the Darwin subsection, but I'd suggest you might do better to replace it with an image of Darwin's finches (and link that article) as these much more directly suggest the evolution from the island endemism story. For instance, the image of adaptive radiation of Finch A into three other species tells the story rather plainly.
- Done
Sources
[edit]- [1], [15], [27], [30] are all Britannica. This is not forbidden exactly, but it does seem rather intensive use of the tertiary source; we certainly prefer reliable secondary sources.
- Tried to pretty extensively take care of Britannica. I think I only couldn't remove one cite (Bananal island)
- [3] is a dead link (and seemed a dubious source), please replace.
- Done
- [12] is not a journal paper; there are many better sources on atolls.
- Done
- [18] is a desperately old (1968) source for island ecology and biogeography. Please follow the suggestions above and the provided wikilinks to obtain more up-to-date sources for this chapter, there are plenty in the linked articles.
- [21] is ok, but article has made very heavy use of it for the human geography.
- Found a couple more sources, want more.
- [22] please spell out and wikilink "Encyclopedia of Life Sciences".
- Done
- [28] is a whole book. Please provide page number(s).
- Done
- [29] - ethnogeriatrics! This may be a reliable source for facts on geriatrics, but it is presumably just copying from other sources on the history of the Pacific islands, on which it can't be an authority. Please find a better source.
- Done
- [31] - what makes Ballard Brief a reliable source?
- Found a better source and a more neutral claim
- [35] please add second author (you have Fisher, need Hirschfeld also).
- Done
- [36] Fang, Duan is a whole book, please provide page number(s).
- I used a snippet of a chapter without page numbers from science direct, threw that in.
- [37] and [38] Mirasola are the same source, please merge them.
- Done
Summary
[edit]- Nom has recently rewritten this article, mainly in a single draft, starting from an old but mainly geographical article. The new 'Humans' chapter is a large improvement; the new 'Life on islands' chapter too is very welcome, but needs rearrangement, linking, and illustrating. Suggestions have been made on the article's illustrations, and for adjustments to the text. Some attention is needed to the sources used. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:47, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
- Will continue working soon. Have covered several comments already ForksForks (talk) 13:24, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
- Unfortunately I'm completely out of time this afternoon to complete Darwin's section -- almost over the finish line. The rest should be a pretty good first pass. If you have suggested images or sources for a quick Darwin summary let me know. ForksForks (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:16, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
- OK, I'm happy with the new section and I've added a couple more images. Please let me know if there's other changes you would like. Thank you! ForksForks (talk) 01:57, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
Did you know nomination
[edit]- The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 12:07, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
- ... that islands are home to 50% of land species at risk of extinction?
- Source: [1] page 2045
- ALT1: ... that animals can colonize islands by riding tropical cyclones? Source: [2]
- ALT2: ... that Polynesian navigators discovered new islands without the use of navigational instruments? Source: [3]
- Reviewed: [[]]
ForksForks (talk) 14:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC).
As a Good level article, this automatically passes several of the criteria, such as length and very obviously using in-line referencing properly and all of that. The nomination was passed yesterday, making this new enough. All three hooks are good and their refs check out for the info and for in-line usage in the article for the information. I'm more partial to the first two than the third one, personally, as the most interesting. No QPQ needs to be done as this is your first nomination. Looks good to go! SilverserenC 21:52, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
- @Silver seren:
per the DYK criteria, a GA pass is not sufficient for DYK purposes – the DYK reviewer has to re-verify that the article meets DYK criteria, even on the same points. A bit cumbersome, unfortunately, but would you mind taking a look for me? (Also, ALT1 fucking rules. Animals can ride tropical cyclones???) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 10:22, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
- Apologies for my lack of clarity in my response above, theleekycauldron. I did check for those anyways, it's just that length was very apparent and I looked through for in-line referencing, copyvio, and the rest anyways. I was just making a generalized statement about it being a Good article. I did still check those criteria. So, still
SilverserenC 21:05, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know if this kind of comment matters, but I would be happy to use ALT1 if people prefer it. No preference from me. Someone suggested "....that an island is land" for an alt as well, which is pretty funny to me. ForksForks (talk) 13:11, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
- Apologies for my lack of clarity in my response above, theleekycauldron. I did check for those anyways, it's just that length was very apparent and I looked through for in-line referencing, copyvio, and the rest anyways. I was just making a generalized statement about it being a Good article. I did still check those criteria. So, still
- @Silver seren:
Who deleted the "Types of island" section?
[edit]Why removed the section about the "Types of island"? Likes the continental islands, oceanic islands (volcanic islands), tropical islands (coral islands), barrier islands, fluvial islands (river islands), and lake islands? 219.76.15.139 (talk) 10:11, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
- I think this would be more suited to a List of types of islands article. Generally we are trying to cover the subject of islands in general in prose form, rather than listing definitions. However, all the island types you list are covered in detail in the body of the article still ForksForks (talk) 13:13, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
- Disagree. The types of islands are very important. We should have a section covering this topic. This article is poorly written. I reckon we should rewrite it properly.
- The National Geographic article about islands serves as a reliable source and good example for us:
- https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/island/ 58.152.51.137 (talk) 04:55, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Apols for hijacking, but the current introductory paragraph does not (currently) mention islands formed by erosion, which are reeeeally common. I'm on one. Is it a "continental island", or are they only created by plate tectonics? AndyI 13:42, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
Dubious claim about Polynesians?
[edit]What does " Polynesians were the first group of humans to colonize islands at scale, dispersing over the Pacific Ocean starting near New Guinea starting as early as 1100 BC." mean? Why are e.g. the people who colonized all the Indonesian islands not considered to "colonize islands at scale" but much earlier? Fram (talk) 07:51, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- Ah, what is meant is "across great distances", which is not the normal meaning of "at scale" at all... Fram (talk) 07:53, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- I would interpret "at scale" to mean the size of the population. But Polynesian populations are quite small by modern standards so it's unclear. If humanity started in Africa, then there must have been a fair amount of island hopping before it reached Polynesia. The claim of a "first" thus seems implausible. We regularly see at DYK that authors love claiming firsts but that they often don't stand up to close inspection. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:22, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- My fault team, I'll look into making a more neutral claim. I think sometimes you try to write one way and it comes out another. I am still trying to grapple with how the voice of wikipedia should sound. ForksForks (talk) 14:13, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- I would interpret "at scale" to mean the size of the population. But Polynesian populations are quite small by modern standards so it's unclear. If humanity started in Africa, then there must have been a fair amount of island hopping before it reached Polynesia. The claim of a "first" thus seems implausible. We regularly see at DYK that authors love claiming firsts but that they often don't stand up to close inspection. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:22, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
Dubious claim about land species
[edit]I replaced a fuzzy claim that
"It has been estimated that almost 50% of land species threatened by extinction live on islands."
with a more precise one from the original review paper.
"In 2017, a detailed review of 1,288 islands found that they were home to 1,189 highly-threatened vertebrate species, which was 41% of the global figure."[1]
These differ in the percentage (41 vs 50%) and the scope (land species vs vertebrate species). Amakuru has now restored the original sentence so that we have both but they are somewhat contradictory. Discuss.
Andrew🐉(talk) 08:14, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- I liked the report since it is written for the ICC and contains summary style findings, the kind we'd like to include on wikipedia. The 50% claim points to this portion of the article:
- "Despite encompassing approximately 2% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface, oceanic and other high-endemicity islands are estimated to harbour substantial proportions of existing species including ~25% extant global flora, ~12% birds and ~10% mammals (Alcover et al., 1998; Wetzel et al., 2013; Kumar and Tehrany, 2017)." [4]
- My thinking is they must have done 25 + 12 + 10 = 47 (almost 50). Notably this sentence lacks the qualifier "presently considered at risk of global extinction" which is included in the summary of findings -- but I tend to trust that these authors mean what they say on the subject.
- For clarity, the specific text in the article says "Due to the large range of insular related vulnerabilities, almost 50% of terrestrial species presently considered at risk of global extinction also occur on islands (high confidence)."
- That said, open to scrutiny on this subject -- I was just trying to repeat the claim in the source more or less as written. ForksForks (talk) 14:08, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
"1.47% of the world's surface area"
[edit]"With the exception of Greenland, islands make up 1.47% of the world's surface area. Despite this, 10% of the world's population lives on islands"
A. Why do we exclude Greenland from the islands, but not, say, Antarctica from the total area? B. "The world's surface area", is that the land area or the total, including the 70% sea? If the latter, then the 1.47% vs. 10% is a lot less spectacular; as we are comparing apples and oranges. "Continents, with the exception of Antarctica, make up 30% of the world's surface area. Despite this, 90% of the world's population live on continents". Well yes, humans tend to live on land, not on the sea. Fram (talk) 14:23, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- I think this was a pre-existing claim in the article before I took a look at it. If I were to argue why one might find the distinction useful -- its that we want to emphasize the relatively small total area of "traditional" islands compared to their population -- ie. stuff that is relatively small, and exclude outliers like Greenland. However, if you think that's an inappropriate comparison for wp, then I am ok with you excising it. ForksForks (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- ^ Spatz DR; Zilliacus KM; Holmes ND; Butchart SHM; Genovesi P; Ceballos G; Tershy BR; Croll DA (2017), "Globally threatened vertebrates on islands with invasive species", Science Advances, 25 (3), doi:10.1126/sciadv.1603080
- Wikipedia good articles
- Geography and places good articles
- GA-Class vital articles
- Wikipedia level-3 vital articles
- Wikipedia vital articles in Physical sciences
- GA-Class level-3 vital articles
- Wikipedia level-3 vital articles in Physical sciences
- GA-Class vital articles in Physical sciences
- GA-Class geography articles
- High-importance geography articles
- WikiProject Geography articles
- GA-Class Islands articles
- WikiProject Islands articles
- Wikipedia former articles for improvement
- Wikipedia Did you know articles