Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Red-tailed hawk/1

Red-tailed hawk

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result pending

There are lots of uncited statements, including entire paragraphs. At over 18,000 words, this article is too detailed and WP:TOOBIG. Many sections are numerous paragraphs long without a heading, making the text difficult to read on mobile devices. This article should be trimmed, with information spun out, summarised more effectively, or removed if too detailed. Z1720 (talk) 15:54, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delist – unless it is cut down to 8,000 words max. The article is way too long, to a point where it is simply not readable. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:01, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's now 4,000 words. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:21, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delist – agree with Jens Lallensack that the article is much, much too long. I notice that citations to books do not specify page numbers. Looking at the history, the article was only 27.7kB when listed as a good article in October 2007. The article was expanded by 182kB in a single edit in January 2018. - Aa77zz (talk) 16:35, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed, see below. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:22, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree there's a lot of unreadable stuff there. I've also just replaced a misidentified photo; the "nominate B. j. jamaicensis" photo was a random captive bird with zero information on its origin, I've added a genuine one from Puerto Rico instead. I'll check the other subspecies photos later. - MPF (talk) 17:25, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See below. The table that contains your image has gone; I have no objection to its restoration if you think it necessary. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:23, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Well as it was a GA and was made absurdly over-large by a single editor, I shall WP:BOLDly revert it to its pre-January 2018 state, and then we can all fill in any gaps from there. The version is reliably cited, mainly to scientific papers, and it covers all the obvious topics. There, done. Let's get this fixed together, everyone. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:18, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Sometimes, an article just deteriorates over time from a valid WP:WIAGA state. Chiswick Chap has restored an older, much better version. Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:11, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- @Jens Lallensack, Aa77zz, and Z1720: are you satisfied with Chiswick Chap's edits? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:13, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  - It is much better now, but I think that just reverting everything to the original GA state is not ideal either, as some crucial standard information (e.g., most taxonomy-related info) is now missing that the previous "long" version at least provided. We should try to get some of that back into the current version. Also, there are other issues, such as information in the lead that do not appear in the body. I will try to make some edits as soon as time allows. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:21, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Z1720 @Chiswick Chap @Jens Lallensack @Aa77zz - I'll put the subspecies table back in; I'll leave doing so for a bit to give anyone time to comment before I do. One thing I'm not sure of though is the vernacular names: in general, bird subspecies don't have separate English names, unless they are very distinctive. But equally, those English names do link to the separate subspecies pages, which are (presumably) orphaned now? - MPF (talk) 19:26, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    By all means put the table back in; meanwhile, I've linked all the subspecies names to their sub-articles. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:42, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    
    I do think that our current list is better than the table: The list 1) is fully sourced, and 2) specifies how the subspecies differ. The table is not. So unless you want to re-do that table, I would prefer the list. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:52, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Good call, thanks! I'll leave it as it is for now; might come back later to add the table framing and pics, together with the current text instead of the old text. - MPF (talk) 20:59, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Z1720 @Chiswick Chap @Jens Lallensack @Aa77zz - just checked on IOC; they only accept 13 subspecies, not 14, with B. j. solitudinis lumped into B. j. umbrinus. I'd suggest we follow suit, and merge the Cuban red-tailed hawk page into the Florida red-tailed hawk page, too - MPF (talk) 21:08, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, do it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:10, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    
    Agreed, we usually follow the IOC, we should here too. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:13, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Chiswick Chap @Jens Lallensack Will do, when I've got time (not tonight, possibly tomorrow...), unless you beat me to it 😆 - MPF (talk) 21:35, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Now spent an hour on fixing the lead and taxonomy sections. I still don't love the article; I felt like I fix one issue just to find three more. Most importantly, important aspects are missing entirely. No word on migration/movements even though that's a big topic; nothing on how to distinguish it from similar species; nothing on life span and survivorship, parasites, population status and trends, conservation, etc. At the moment, I stick with "Delist" because the GA criterion "broad in its coverage" is not met. This should not be too difficult to fix; some of it could be taken from the "long" version that was reverted (in a much condensed form, of course). All aspects are summarised in the "Birds of the World" account, which for this species is freely accessible [1]. Still, it needs effort and time. @MPF: Do you think you could help to get at least some of these covered? If so, I might be able to take over a section provided that time allows. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:16, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
MPF, are you still able to work on this GA save? I think the above comment from JL is the most major of the outstanding items. I'm not sure that all of the aspects are necessary for "broad in its coverage", but certainly some of them are. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:38, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Firefangledfeathers I'll see what I can do, but I doubt it'll be a lot, mainly just checking the subspecies are up-to-date per IOC - MPF (talk) 13:29, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Each of the 14 subspecies has a separate Wiki article. This is very unusual - and in my opinion a bad idea. Subspecies are just regional variations, usually in size and plumage. Subspecies are very similar to the nominate form, often so similar that they cannot be distinguished in the field. The differences can be easily described in the article for the nominate. The behaviour sections (Food and feeding, Breeding etc) will normally be identical. Should the information be repeated? Another problem is that most subspecies don't have accepted English names. - Aa77zz (talk) 16:17, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but I worry that merging them all would overwhelm the main article, and even more so if other relevant details (taxonomic history, etymologies, conservation status and trends, number of breeding paris, photographs, etc.) are to be added for each of them, too. Already now we give a lot of room to the subspecies; making that section even longer might verge on WP:undue. If the subspecies list gets too long, we could maybe create a spin-off article Taxonomy of the red-tailed hawk, where we could have a proper section for each subspecies. This would also allow us to cover potential subspecies and those that are currently not accepted, as well as other taxonomic detail that does not fit the main article. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:44, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The subspecies articles are not part of this GAR. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:26, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is minor compared to the other issues, but could someone more familiar with birds take a look at the external links section? At 10 links, it appears to have too many entries if I'm reading WP:EL correctly. I'm questioning why a Flickr group is included and why several of the other links cannot either be incorporated as citations or added as "further reading" instead. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:20, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I removed a good number of the bullet points in External Links just now. The All About Birds species account is already a reference in the text, the North American Falconers Association is not expressly relevant to red-tailed hawks, and the other four links I removed were guides on how to identify different morphs. Commons and Wikispecies can be accessed through the sidebar more easily than at the bottom of the page. -- Recon rabbit 18:01, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, the external links section looks a lot better now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:57, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]