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Fancy rat

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… We all have been working hard to bring it up to Wikipedia's GA standards. I feel that the article is informative, providing information that has been verified to reliable sources and presented from a neutral point of view. I believe that the article makes good use of pictures and internal linking. Finally, as a total novice in the subject, I came away after reading this article with more than just a cursory overview of the topic, but rather more detailed expert knowledge of Fancy rats.

I am looking for outside opinions to see if they concur with my assessment here that this article is ready to be promoted to Good Article status. Thanks, -- Levine2112 discuss 18:25, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Very interesting article and seems close to GA, here are some suggestions for improvement.

  • Reading Wikipedia:Good article criteria, the main problems seem to be some WP:MOS issues and a few broadness of coverage issues. I usually review articles with FA in mind, so some of my comments may be pickier than GA requires. I will start with MOS issues
  • The lead needs to follow WP:LEAD. It should be three paragraphs long for the length of the article, and one sentence paragraphs are discouraged by the MOS anyway. I would combine the current fourth paragraph (one sentence about rats in culture) with the third paragraph.
  • The lead is also supposed to be a summary of the whole article and as such should not contain any material not also in the article. The origin and meaning of the name seems to be only in the lead though.
    • As per MOS:BEGIN the origin and meaning are there to define the term as completely as possible - isn't it a little overkill to then have a seperate section repeating these two sentences? There isn't much else to say beyond what's already in the lead, and i wouldn't think that a definition needs to be reiterated. -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 17:22, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think it is OK for GA (I tend to review with my FA glasses on), but I also think the name origin could easily be in the History section. The Oxford English Dictionary usually will give the first recorded usage of a word, so that could be in there too (when were they first called "fancy rats"?). Ruhrfisch ><>°° 20:16, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Refs in the lead are generally reserved for direct quoatations or extraoridnary claims (again the refs should be in the body of the article where the claim is repeated).
  • Refs follow punctuation, so fix things like Fancy rats are not a carrier of plague[5], ...
  • Punctuation follows quotation marks unless an entire sentence is being quoted, so fix Thus, one who keeps pet rats is said to be involved in "rat fancy."
  • There are a few places where italics are used for emphasis that seem to contradict WP:ITALIC
  • To improve the flow of the article I try to avoid short (one or two sentence) paragraphs and sections, as well as bullet point lists.
    • I generally agree, but I'm also a stickler when it comes to the idea that the sentences in a paragraph should relate to eachother (which is why i had to reorganize the lead to squeeze the entertainment sentence somewhere). I've fixed most of these instances, but left some because either the information really shouldn't be appended to the surrounding paragraphs, or to increase readability (the Health section is full of terms and diseases that readers may be unfamiliar with). -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 17:22, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The single bulleted list in the Markings section is there because that turned out to be the easiest way to present the information for readability and accessibility. One long list of prose, similar to how the coat-types are handled, is actually too cumbersome, not really improving "flow" at all, while a table was the worst, given the other surrounding formatting (i.e. images). -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 17:22, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Refs should be in numerical order so fix things like and the stresses naturally associated with living in an unnatural habitat can all adversely affect a rat's health making them prone to specific conditions.[33][31][34]
  • I thought the History section could be expanded a bit to meet the broadness of coverage criterion - there is no reason given for the closing of the first club in 1931 or the refounding of the new British group in 1976. Nothing at all on other clubs being founded (dates).
    • Info added, there really isn't much out there other than the NFRS surfaced because there enough interest again. As far as other clubs go, given that this a relatively newer hobby it only seems necessary to point out the originators as over time many will come and go - eventually longstanding notable clubs will stand out, but there aren't any others that really need to be addressed in the history section. -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 06:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Try to remember to provide context for the reader - see WP:PCR. For example a year range for the Victorian originators would help, or saying the NFRS is British would too.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 15:50, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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