Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cochineal/archive1

Cochineal

I would like to self-nominate this article because it's balanced and informative. The article provides interesting facts from arround the globe, so it should be interesting to read. DariusMazeika 12:05, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

• refer to peer review mild object Support This is a good start at an article toward featrued quality, but: 1) Cite your sources in a References section. 2) The lead section is inadequate for an article of this length. 3) The article lacks the Taxobox that is used on other articles about animals. slambo 13:16, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • Looks better, thanks for making the changes so quickly. On the references, they should be formatted as is shown on the page linked above, especially important for online references is the date that they were accessed. Some editors like to see inline citations (like are described in Wikipedia:Footnote3), but I'm still indifferent to footnoting. The lead is better, but the article body now needs more information about the species to be comprehensive. A good comparison for other animal articles is Island Fox which was promoted to featured status about a month or so ago. slambo 15:07, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
    • I have introduced the changes proposed for the lead section and the references into the article. Comment again, please. Thank you. DariusMazeika 21:07, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
      • Steady improvement, thanks. I've only skimmed it this morning; I'll re-read it later today and reconsider. slambo 11:38, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
      • Just re-read the article, upgrading my vote to Support. Well done! slambo 02:01, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

• Object, I've just adjusted the reference system and given it a good copyedit, it has potential but is not ready yet. Going over it thoroughly there is still room for expansion particularly in the section where the life cycle is described, more could be added to the usage too. There is a mix of metric and imperial measurements. The exact range of catci (seems to eat cacti from two genera, but there is only list of species for 1) needs to be researched and included. There are lots of red links, and quite a few blue ones that link to substandard articles, like carmic acid, which redirects to carmine and they're not the same thing but they are both relevant to the article. Also the cost of cochineal compared to the artifical dyes seems relevant but is not mentioned--nixie 01:54, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Lifecycle & usage have been expanded, details like pricing, current markets and normalised list of species added. DariusMazeika 21:55, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Support, some more stubs for the red links, would be good before it appears on the main page. Nice work on getting the photos. --nixie 00:20, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• Comments 1) Actual images would be better over drawings of the insect. 2) I think the biology section could be expanded. 3) The history section makes no mention of the pigments cochineal replaced. Circeus 12:48, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thank you for comments. I am going to improve the article after a weekend - on Monday-Tuesday. DariusMazeika 10:16, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
  • The article improved according to comments 2) and 3). Currently I was unsuccessful in finding a free macro photo of the insect for 1). New images are on the page, a macro images are expected, too. DariusMazeika 21:55, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
• Support. It could be improved, of course, but I'd say it's good enough for FA status already. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 18:13, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Mild support I'm just a little concerned about the second paragraph being where it is; I'm thinking maybe it should be in the Dye--History section instead of where it is. Does anyone agree with me on that? --JB Adder | Talk 23:42, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • The reason why I have put this paragraph on top, is because it describes what the rest article is about: not only the biology and the dye (as the first paragraph suggests), but also the farming, history and current market, like the second one does. DariusMazeika 07:47, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Okay. Now that I know that, I'll give my full support. --JB Adder | Talk 07:54, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
• Object. There are a number of orphan paragraphs that are only one or two sentences that either need to be expanded or merged as the create poor prose flow. There is also a fair amount of poor grammar and sentence structure that appears as if it was written by a non-native english speaker. Nothing wrong with being non-native, but it still needs to be fixed. I'll see what I can do, but some of them I won't be able to fix because I won't know what the intent of the author was. Here's one specific one: "The dried bodies of the females or eggs are the main source of carminic acid which is used to make an expensive crimson or carmine red coloured dye primarily used as an food artificial colouring or for cosmetics named after the insect." As I understand it the dye and the coloring are known as cochineal, not the cosmetics they are used in. The sentence is not clear on which is correct. - Taxman ^Talk 16:30, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • I've wound up the short paragraphs and fixed the remnant grammar problems.--nixie 06:19, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
    • All improvements, and I've done some more, but there is still a lot of very stilted, poorly flowing prose. No offense to anyone, but the writing is far from brilliant. I'll give a little leeway on prose difficulties arising from collating sources, and trying to be careful about the research, but even that can be improved, and there are many cases throughout the article that aren't even due to that. There is also a question of fact, the 'Host cacti' section refers to the cacti being introduced into Australia to produce cochineal dye, but Opuntia tells a different story, and emphasizes the results very differently. Come to think of it, "Side effects have caused a havoc:" is hard to think of as NPOV. Also, from the coloring section: "Each method produces a different colour which results in the varied appearance of commercial cochineal. The immersion technique produces grey grains known as grey cochineal [3]. Heating technique produces almost black grains known as black cochineal." Then where the heck does the red color (or related shades) come from? - Taxman ^Talk 21:55, July 26, 2005 (UTC)