Here we have another well-known animal, the top predator of the Arctic and icon of climate change. I've put off doing this article for a long time but a couple months ago I began rewriting it. We already have
Knut (polar bear) as an FA, and its time for the species itself to take its rightful place on the mammal list. I wish to have this as a TFA for
International Polar Bear Day on February 27. Special thanks to
WereSpielChequers and
Danbloch.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:52, 9 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Note:
FunkMonk,
Jens Lallensack and any more reviewers, please add your four ~ at the end of each bulletin so I can reply to each easier. Thank you.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:40, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Support from Jens
The bear is called nanook by the Inuit. The Netsilik cultures have different names for bears – Do the Netsilik also use the word "nanook", since they are Inuit, but have these other words in addition?
Different subspecies have been proposed including Ursus maritimus maritimus (Phipps in 1774), U. m. marinus (Pallas 1776). – Why aren't these listed in the taxonbox, while an extinct, also questionable subspecies is listed? And should there be an "and" instead of the comma?
Heading "Natural history": Isn't "natural history" a term with a much broader scope? It surely includes evolution, but of all things, this section is under "taxonomy" instead. I suggest to rename it into "Behaviour and life history" or similar. --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 01:12, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I see that some people use this term this way. But I doubt this is what the average reader will understand. Look in the dictionary
[2] how many definitions there are, most of them very broad. Why use this vague term that can mean anything, when more precise alternatives are available? --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 02:04, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The paper gives this as an extimate though, and explicitly says it was not measured. We have to make clear it's an estimate. --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 16:47, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Sexual dimorphism in the species is particularly high compared with most other mammals – Can we remove the "particularly", or is there something else that is also high?
Some other mammals like elephant seals have higher sexual dimporhism.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:31, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Male polar bears have larger heads than females. – Proportionally, I assume? And maybe this information is better placed together with the sentence on sexual dimorphism?
Male polar bears have larger heads than females. The snout profile is curved, resembling a "Roman nose". – Two pieces of information that don't fit the reading flow (the text before and after this is about something else; this seem to have been inserted inside but destroys the logical succession of information. Can it be placed somewhere else?
They move around by walking or galloping. – The implication of this sentence would be that they lack a trot, in contrast to most other larger mammals. Can you check this? If so – it should be explicitly mentioned, as this is the main point.
I think it is an important point, though. This paper
[4] explicitly states that they never trot. Can we add this back in, stating that they walk and gallop but not trot? --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 16:47, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The feet are hairier than in other bear species, which allows then to walk on snow and sea ice – "which allows them"? Also, please specify what the function is: Traction, insulation, or both?
Fat reserves allow polar bears to fast for months. – This piece of information is a bit lonely and isolated. I think it is relevant in context of the low-food period during summer, and could be better placed where this is discussed?
But isn't this very (or even impossibly) small when the ceiling height is 1.2 m? The circumference should be greater than twice the ceiling height, right? --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 14:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)reply
A 2018 study found that ten percent or less of prime bear habitat in the Chukchi Sea is vulnerable to a potential spill, but could harm – I think there is a grammar issue, as it basically says that bear habitat would "harm" which makes no sense.
The "Cultural significance" section has nothing about Russia, and therefore seems to be biased towards Europe and North America. --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 11:27, 14 August 2023 (UTC)reply
OK. The Russian article has something but English sources for that stuff are hard to find. --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 14:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)reply
This is all from me – I didn't look at sources but the prose looks good! --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 11:15, 14 August 2023 (UTC)reply
UndercoverClassicist
My admiration always goes to those willing to take on the big topics, especially one with so much call for judicious summarising. Hugely knowledgeable and generally very clear throughout. My main concerns are the heavy reliance on primary sources for scientific claims, which I've explained in a little more detail below; it would also help clarity if certain people, places and concepts were more fully introduced and explained for
non-expert readers.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 08:54, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Tidyup
Suggest briefly introducing people by (some or all of) period, nationality and profession on first mention: the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant, the Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, the British explorer Constantine John Phipps.
I have before, but was told to stop in a previous FA.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:12, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Due to its adaptations to a marine environment, some have placed the polar bear in its own genus Thalarctos: I think we want a comma before Thalarctos.
Mitochondrial DNA studies in the 1990s and 2000s have supported the status of the polar bear as a derivative of the brown bear, finding that some brown bear populations were more closely related to polar bears than other brown bears, particularly the ABC Islands bears.: the three citations cited here look like primary sources to me (that is, the studies themselves rather than someone else talking about the studies). This isn't a medical article, so
WP:MEDRS doesn't strictly apply, but that page points out that primary sources are particularly unreliable for scientific studies, since it's common for their results not to be replicated and so for their conclusions to be discarded later. Can we cite to a secondary source? This issue pops up a few times in that section (in fact, it seems to be almost entirely cited to primary sources).
You mean I'm not supposed to cite scientific articles? What? I cited several scientific articles in my other FAs with no problem. I would really like to get a second opinion. @
FAC coordinators:
?
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:32, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm not an expert, but I thought replication was more of an issue with experiments than descriptive studies.
UndercoverClassicist, what source would you prefer for this information that would state the mainstream scientific view? (
t ·
c) buidhe 17:26, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
That's a fair point; I'll have a look through and see if any of the cited articles actually report an experiment - please consider this one shelved for now.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 18:09, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
OK, some are experiments (Owen, M. A.; Swaisgood, R. R.; Slocomb, C.; Amstrup, S. C.; Durner, G. M.; Simac, K.; Pessier, A. P. (2014). "An experimental investigation of chemical communication in the polar bear), some (most?) aren't. I think there's some wisdom in what
WP:MEDRS says: Ideal sources for [scientific] information include: review articles (especially systematic reviews) published in reputable medical journals; academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers; and guidelines or position statements from national or international expert bodies. It's not a deal-breaker for me, but I'd encourage the swapping in of secondary sources (books and review articles, in particular) if and when those exist. After all, it's not all that uncommon for the results of a project or investigation to get through peer review to publication, only then to be widely rejected by the academic community for some methodological reason or other, and that holds both for strictly experimental work and that which is more descriptive.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 20:55, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Thinking on this a bit more (and I apologise for now replying to myself twice), there's a bit of a
WP:SUMMARYSTYLE problem here. Individual scientific studies are very close to the epistemological coal face: a Wikipedia article, particularly a high-level one that might (or does) encapsulate several sub-articles, should be a few steps back. If the information only exists in primary studies/experiments but hasn't made its way into books or review articles yet, and those studies haven't yet been cited by others, are we really summarising the established scholarship? This isn't to say that we should never cite a recent study or experiment, but to raise a query as to the degree to which we're doing it here.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 21:36, 11 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Most scientific articles on animals are observations not experiments. The DNA studies are observations. You can check the that these articles are cited multiple times. Hailer and colleagues (2012) is cited 280 times for example. Papers talk about previous studies all the time. I thought that using "primary sources" is more of a problem for history because citing historical documents requires interpretation and thus would be OR. This is different from citing the conclusions of scientific researchers. Paleontology articles rely heavily on peer-reviewed papers. You can't expect them to cite only books and review articles. If I just cited books, I would be in gross violation of 1c: a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature.
Hog Farm, need you to weigh in.
LittleJerry (
talk) 22:13, 11 August 2023 (UTC)reply
WP:MEDRS applies to biomedical articles only and so is not, IMO, relevant here.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 16:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
All fair points. Given that the replication issue isn't relevant here, I don't think there's a real problem with the current citations. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:38, 14 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Lindqvist and colleagues (2010) estimated that the polar bear lineage split from other brown bears around 150,000 years ago.: definitely parenthetical: if the date is felt important, could change to "In 2010, the biologist Charlotte Lindqvist and her colleagues...". Again, I think this is cited to a primary source. There's a few similar cases in the same section.
I've referenced studies this way before in other FAs and "In 2010, the biologist Charlotte Lindqvist and her colleagues" just seems unnecessary.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:19, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Parenthetical referencing seems to me to be a clear-cut break with our style guidelines, which isn't compatible with FA criterion 2: I'm always sympathetic to a
WP:IAR argument if there's a situation-specific reason to suspend that part of the criteria, but I'm not sure that "it's got through the net before" is really one of those.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 21:39, 11 August 2023 (UTC)reply
@
FAC coordinators:
? You've reviewed and readed my nominations before.. I honestly don't think this violates wiki rules.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:49, 11 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Lindqvist needs introducing, and UC's suggestion seems the obvious way of doing this. No doubt there are other ways. If I were reviewing I would also be unhappy with the current phrasing. I do not believe that there is a primary source issue, but have an open mind if someone wishes to persuade me differently.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 16:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
particularly high compared to most other mammals: it's less of a rule than people think, but many readers will prefer compared with when not talking about numbers.
The polar bear's liver accumulates high concentrations of vitamin A from their prey, making it toxic: little ambiguity in practice, but grammatically it ought to refer to the prey. Suggest "The polar bear's liver is toxic from the accumulation of..."
Their range includes Greenland, Canada, the US state of Alaska, Russia and the Svalbard Archipelago of Norway: why "the US state"? It makes the sentence more clunky and we haven't said "the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland".
One study found they can swim an average of 154.2 km (95.8 mi) with an average duration of 3.4 days: slightly wonky phrasing ("I ran three miles with a duration of half an hour"?): suggest something like "they can swim for an average of 3.4 days at a time, and travel an average of..."
Adult males require less shelter for sleeping as they are less at risk from other bears.: is it worth spelling out why the others are at risk from other bears?
I would think that would be obvious, males are bigger than females and adult male are of great size and less likely to be messed with.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:19, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
This links to another point, but (for example) messed with and eaten?
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 18:10, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It doesn't say specifically.
LittleJerry (
talk) 18:38, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
other female-offspring units: I think this is a unit of a female and an offspring, in which case it should be an endash rather than a hyphen (
MOS:ENBETWEEN). The same goes for blue-violet further up if we mean colours between blue and violet.
In their southern range, especially near Hudson Bay and James Bay, polar bears endure all summer without sea ice to hunt from. Hence they must subsist more on terrestrial foods: consider joining these two sentences; the second sits a little awkwardly on its own.
Polar bears are especially susceptible to Trichinella, a parasitic roundworm they contract through cannibalism: we didn't mention cannibalism in the diet section; is this a normal part of bears' diet?
In more modern times, Hollywood actors would pose on bearskin rugs: can we be more specific on the time frame? Hollywood has been around as a centre for film since 1911; Monroe didn't start acting for another 35 years.
There's a lot of people who could do with an introduction in the first paragraph of "Captivity": in particular, we should clarify which James I we're talking about (consider "James VI and I", as he's not James I in Scotland) per
MOS:NOFORCELINK.
Many zoos in Europe and North America have stopped keeping polar bears due to the costs of their exhibits: what makes these exhibits so expensive?
The source doesn't make it very clear, their design is already discussed.
LittleJerry (
talk) 20:48, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
MOS:BIRTHDATE advises against giving people's lifespan, except at the start of an article where they're the subject. Admittedly, it doesn't give specific guidance on polar bears, but I'd put the ranges into prose if they're felt important.
Give a rough date range for the Dorset culture, The Grimsey Man and the Bear and The Tale of Auðun of the West Fjords.
Give one. No dates are given for the other two.
LittleJerry (
talk) 20:48, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't follow; we know that the Dorset Culture existed from 500 BCE to between 1000 CE and 1500 CE, and I think it's germane to readers to know that we're talking about something that's very much a historical rather than a contemporary object. I didn't get much on a quick Google for the Grimsey man, unfortunately; appreciate that folklore can be a very tricky one to date even approximately.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 21:02, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't see that as necessary, especially such that's such a wide time period. No date is give for the art specifically.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:16, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
We disagree on this one, but it's not a make-or-break issue for FAC. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It is considered to be a powerful symbol for the dangers of climate change and has been used to raise awareness: I think you have to raise awarness of something.
There seems to be a space before each of the EFNs. Are these cited at the end of that sentence in body text? I'd suggest including the citation in the footnote as well, to better reflect where readers will be looking when they need it.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 21:05, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
What was the thinking behind that removal? We now have the term, also without a date, in the infobox, and no real way for the reader to see the link between that and the dates 130,000- to 110,000-year-old jaw bone given in the body text. Seems like a step backwards. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:04, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I removed it because the range would give the impression that fossils are found as early as 2.59 mya. I just don't see the need to give big date ranges. They can see the years in the body and the era name in the infobox.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:38, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The polar bear is both the largest living species of bear and the largest land carnivore: grammatically, living only modifies species of bear, but surely needs to qualify land carnivore as well. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Compared to the brown bear, this species has a more slender build: compared with as before. Also for Analysis of the copy number variation in the genes of polar bears compared to brown bears unless CNV is a numerical quantity (and perhaps even then, just to keep it neat). UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The teeth are adapted for a more carnivorous diet than the brown bear: either than the brown bear's or than that of the brown bear. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
serving a similar function to the lion's mane: I'd explain briefly what that function is: per
WP:POPE, we shouldn't assume that our readers know anything about lions. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Polar bears are pure white after they molt and gain a more yellowish colouration as they are exposed more to the sun: as written, the more is redundant; I'd suggest slightly rephrasing to Polar bears' fur is ... and gains ... as it is exposed to the sun, since other parts of polar bears are not white. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Overheating is countered by a layer of highly vascularized striated muscle tissue and finely controlled blood vessels, along with submerging in water: the along with doesn't quite read right for me; I'd suggest expanding it out into a sentence so that we have the balance of one sentence of physiological adaptations and the other of behavioural ones. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
the roof of the head isn't a very common term, I don't think.
Skull roof would be possible, but is anything lost from "top of the head"? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
They are relatively small, which may be an adaption against blowing snow and snow-blindness. They are dichromats,: they is used twice, but I think it's the polar bears whom you'd call dichromats, not their eyes? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The polar bear's liver is toxic: toxic to humans, to most animals or similar? I'm sure something can eat it. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The source just says its toxic, presumably to anything that will eat it.
LittleJerry (
talk) 11:56, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'd clarify "toxic to humans", particularly if that's just a presumption and not directly supported by the source. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Two Norwegian fairy tales, East of the Sun and West of the Moon and White-Bear-King-Valemon involve)): comma after Valemon. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Typo in James VI and I of Britian. Britain isn't a country; as he's got three kingdoms and two numerals, better kept as "of Scotland, England and Ireland". UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
allowing for a more immersive experience for the guests reads a little like advertising-speak: suggest cutting or something more factual like "a plexiglass tunnel, through which visitors can observe the bears from underneath the water". In the image caption, the tunnel is glass; plexiglass is a plastic. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm not sure about post-WWII in body text, and there's a
WP:POPE argument against using a historical event as a simple chronological marker. Suggest "in the second half of the twentieth century", "from the 1950s" or similar. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
We could give dates for when Binky and Knut became famous (Knut in the 2000s, Binky for maulings in the early 1990s). UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
that's why I added the date ranges.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:15, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
We previously had the dates of their lifespans in parentheses, which the MOS specifically advises against. Fortunately, there's no MOS prohibition against writing a sentence that includes a date. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The sources don't give dates.
LittleJerry (
talk) 01:11, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
There most definitely are sources which tell you when Knut became famous and when Binky mauled people. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 10:55, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
We could do with a little more on the history of the Coca-Cola bears (in particular, when and where they were first used). UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
No. We have an article on that. This will only bloat and unbalance the section.
LittleJerry (
talk) 10:49, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Being chronologically accurate would help: we've said that it "is featured ... in many advertisements ... for Coca-Cola." This puts the statement firmly in the present tense, but it goes back about a century: I don't think it would bloat an article of this size to say something like "since 1922, the polar bear has featured in advertisements for Coca-Cola". UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
a result of there being less odours in their Arctic habitat: fewer odours, as odours are countable. This sentence doesn't read brilliantly and I'm not sure it's quite the point: isn't it more about whether polar bears use (or can use) odours for things that they need to do, particularly finding food? If sea ice suddenly started smelling of lavender, that wouldn't encourage polar bears to develop better noses. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
involved in keratin creating proteins: I would definitely hyphenate this
compound modifier; there are others like fatty acid breakdown and polar bear populations that are more a matter of taste. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
that too complicated. the article itself is overly technical.
LittleJerry (
talk) 11:58, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Including technical terms without explaining them makes the article less accessible, not more. If we're going to make readers read the term ito cell, we should give them a reasonable chance of understanding what it means, and
MOS:NOFORCELINK tells us that that should be more than just a link to another page. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Polar bears have been recorded just 25 km (16 mi) from the North Pole: the just reads as slight editorialising to me: suggest rephrasing to "the most northerly recorded sighting of a polar bear was 25 km..." or simply cutting that word. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
but have historically been recorded visiting there if they can reach it via sea ice: what does historically mean and add here? It sounds like it means "in pre-modern times" or similar; I'd either clarify or cut. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
A 2022 study has suggested that the bears in eastern Greenland should be divided into north and south: this could be slightly expanded to clarify that researchers have posited that there are two distinct subpopulations on Greenland, one living in the north and one in the south, rather than that they have proposed segregating the bears. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The bears can also be divided: all of them, presumably, but as written it could be just those in Greenland. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Fat reserves allow polar bears to fast for months: fasting, particularly in the linked article, generally refers to a voluntary process; better as "survive without food" or similar? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Can we put non-English terms (such as apitiliit') into the appropriate language template (lang|und for undetermined, if nothing else) for the benefit of screen readers and the Wiki software? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I have no idea how to do that.
LittleJerry (
talk) 13:29, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
In this case, {{lang|und|apitiliit}}, if you don't know what language it is, or swap "und" for
one of these if you do. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Per
MOS:NOFORCELINK, suggest explaining technical terms that are vital to the reader's comprehension, such as introgression, copy number variation and matriline. We've done this well for enzyme. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
During walrus hunts, the sight of an approaching polar bear can cause aggregations of walruses to panic and stampede.: presumably this is true not during walrus hunts as well. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The clause during walrus hunts in this position implies that what follows happens specifically during walrus hunts (cf. "on Sundays, the bus runs ten minutes late"). However, the sight of an approaching polar bear can presumably cause aggregations of walruses to panic whether that bear has decided to hunt them or not. We therefore need to move things around: perhaps something like "The sight of an approaching polar bear can cause aggregations of walruses to panic and stampede. Bears will take advantage of this during hunts by provoking walruses into stampeding, and then looking for young that have been crushed or separated from the group during the turmoil." UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The bears usually tolerate them but will charge a fox that gets too close when it is feeding: I think it here is the bear, not the fox, but the sentence is written the other way around. The bears are plural here, so we need when they are feeding. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Females with cubs often defer a carcass to an approaching adult male: I don't think you can use defer transitively unless we mean "delay". UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
A polar bear family stays near the dens for roughly two weeks, during this time the cubs will move and play around while the mother mostly rests: better to split with either a semicolon, colon or full stop, as the second clause is a full and fairly substantial sentence. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I think we need to explain Denmark (Greenland) as a signatory: is that Denmark on behalf of Greenland? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm not sure Denmark (via Greenland) is any clearer: in particular, it leaves very ambiguous which of the two countries' names was actually written on the document. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 10:56, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Neater perhaps as "of which Greenland is an autonomous territory"? The political status of Greenland is a hot issue there and I suspect "controls" would raise eyebrows in some quarters. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Two Norwegian fairy tales, East of the Sun and West of the Moon and White-Bear-King-Valemon, involve white bears turning into men and sleeping with women: advise against sleeping with per
MOS:IDIOM and being a little more direct. Would either of seducing, raping or having sex with (mindful of
WP:NOTCENSORED work? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
A particularly common image is that of a polar bear stranded on an ice floe.: we've said that this is particularly common, but haven't actually given any examples of its existence, when and how it has been seen, or so on. Is this sentence also cited to Born? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Bonn states "polar bear, adrift on a melting ice floe, a polar bear desperately clutching to some blocks of ice, or a polar bear expressing emotions of sadness or distress; these images no longer appear to present a particular animal, place, or time".
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm not sure that's quite the same, but I'm willing to believe it's clearer in context. The point stands, though: it's better to show as well as tell and give some examples. There's an advert for the Nissan Leaf which seems to be discussed a lot in the sources. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 17:00, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
done. As for Nissan leaf, when it comes to cultural references in the main animal article (as opposed to its own seperate article), I don't like to cherrypick sources that are not about the animal or news articles. If a cultural reference is not in my polar bear books or a peer reviewed article about the cultural impact of the animals, then its not that important.
LittleJerry (
talk) 17:16, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
To hammer home this point. Here's what I was told during a previous FAC. I have concerns about using a google search to decide what "re: culture: how are you deciding which examples to include and which to omit? - the best method would be to actually consult books on the animal and see what the academic scholars think is important in regards to culture - because google's results are going to vary depending on the location of the search and other factors we can't know due to google's opaque algorithims.LittleJerry (
talk) 17:18, 17 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Yes: this is all true. The reason to include the Leaf advert is precisely because it's discussed in printed books, academic research and other things that meet
WP:HQRS, which is the core of
WP:DUEWEIGHT. I think I pulled out a few examples in another comment; I'm not in a place to re-find those at the moment, but a Google Books search will give you a good starting point.
WP:DUEWEIGHT means that we need to include what's discussed in the sources as a whole, not merely those that happen to be on our individual bookshelves. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 23:15, 17 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Its not about reliable sources. It's about whether those reliable sources are about polar bears. I’ll see what I can do.LittleJerry (
talk) 00:06, 18 August 2023 (UTC)reply
A native polar bear hunt: native is not a good term (and can be read as anachronistic, at best, or even somewhat racist): everyone's a native of somewhere. If we can't name the people, we should be able to (at least roughly) name the place. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
two people are killed by a circus polar bear. The scenes were shot using animal trainers instead of the actors: this bit still doesn't read great. I wonder whether replacing two people with two characters would make it better, and make the two sentences fit a little more smoothly? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
coats-of-arms, like the coat of arms of Greenland: we should be consistent on hyphenation, especially in such close proximity. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
However, it may in fact be a large brown bear: since this species is extinct, we should refer to it in the past tense. Suggest adding roughly when it's supposed to have lived.
Reading again, this sentence feels a little half-done: do we mean that U. maritimus tyrannus was a large subspecies of the brown bear, or that the example(s) we have are U. arctos pure and simple? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The source just says it may be a brown bear.
LittleJerry (
talk) 13:19, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
OK, but we need to be clear, accurate and as good as a professional encyclopaedia: if we've got one source and it doesn't allow us to do that, we need to find some more.
This book (p190) gives some useful context: tyrannus is "known" only from a single bone (an ulna), and the evidence for it belonging to a new species of polar bear is that it's extremely big. However, it might have come from an extremely large but otherwise normal brown bear, meaning that the species never existed. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:01, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I think the "missing link" at the moment is to let readers know that we've only "identified" a single putative animal: if they're imagining a species with multiple members, the sentence is a little confusing. It also seems to be fairly undisputed in post-2000ish HRQS that the ulna was from a brown bear and that tyrannus did not exist (
e.g. here p36, which also gives it as a grizzly). Suggest something like:
"One possible fossil subspecies, Ursus maritimus tyrannus, was posited in 1964 by
Björn Kurtén (
paper here for citation). Kurtén reconstructed the subspecies from a single fragment of an ulna, approximately 20% larger than expected for a polar bear.(cite: Kurten 1964: p10) However, re-evaluation in the 21st century has indicated that the fragment likely comes from a large brown or grizzly bear."
As this is still the main article for ursus maritimus tyrannus, I think we're justified in giving it three sentences: I can see an argument for omitting Kurtén's name if brevity is a concern, but most of those details seem to be found in most sources discussing tyrannus, so there's probably a stronger
WP:DUEWEIGHT argument for giving the story this much space. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:51, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I think we're still behind the scholarship with that 2008 article: Harington cites a personal comment from the director of the NHM that it's likely to be a brown bear, and subsequent sources that show more than a passing familiarity with the question are pretty unequivocal that it was (
here and
here, for instance: see also
this very sceptical reception of Kurten from 1999). In other words, I think our article leaves the question more open than it is: suggest citing one or more of these sources and amending to something a bit more decisive. I suggested one formulation in the blockquote above, but am not particularly wedded to that phrasing. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 20:14, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
This bit still needs some attention, I'm afraid. Something's gone wrong in the writing or editing. We also need to sort out the final sentence (currently "However, it is currently considered to be a large individual brown bear"), which no longer makes sense in context: we need to be clear that the current understanding is that the ulna itself came from a brown bear. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:27, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I changed it to your proposed wording.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:51, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Why is
charismatic megafauna linked in the See Also but not mentioned in the article? More generally, I'm a little surprised not to see a subsection on conservation and protection efforts (we have one on conservation, which is really about threats, with a paragraph on laws: has anyone done anything a bit more hands-on?). We briefly discuss polar bears in zoos, but as a continuation of circuses. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The biggest threat to polar bears is climate change. The way to stop that is to limit carbon emissions, which is being done for the sake of the world. There isn't much to talk about for anything else other than hunting regulations. There's a reason that polar bears have remained in much of their historic range so far.
LittleJerry (
talk) 11:18, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
You already get the impression that polars bears are well known and famous animals. What does it matter whether I mention the term charismatic megafauna? I didn't have to for other famous mammals. Not using a certain phrase (which few people have heard of) has nothing to do with due weight. And many animals breed in captivity, there is nothing special about polar bears. They are no programs to breed and release them into the wild.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It's more the concept of "charismatic megafauna" as used in conservation media: how it relates to creating iconic focuses for generalised issues - in particular, the role of polar bears as a kind of metonym for the effects of climate change. We've mentioned the connection between polar bears and the popular understanding of climate change but not suggested any special status for them, which is at odds with HQRS who do discuss this issue. As for the phrase itself, they are used so consistently alongside it that it seems like an odd omission, especially when we acknowledge in "see also" that it's a term of relevance to our readers.
Our source disagrees on the specialness of polar bears; many animals breed in captivity, but not many marine mammals. In the words of
WP:GVF, the "comprehensive" standard requires that no major fact or detail is omitted. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 10:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Nissan Leaf is a car, not a company: this bit needs another look. I'd suggest keeping
WP:POPE in mind. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
References are quite inconsistent about whether to use title case or sentence case for titles. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Females with cubs often leave a carcass to an approaching adult male, though they may be less likely to if they haven't eaten in a long time: avoid contractions. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
female defense polygyny: suggest hyphenating, as the other two have nothing to do with female defence. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Personal taste perhaps, but I wouldn't include ... at the start of quotations: the lack of capitalisation makes clear that we're not passing it off as a full sentence, but it's such a small point that I think readability outweighs strict adherence to the original. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Several captive polar bears were given celebrity status in the late 20th and 21st century: I think you can gain celebrity status, but I don't think you can be given it (by whom?). "The late 20th and 21st century" isn't quite grammatical: we could go with "the late 20th and early 21st centuries", or "in the 1990s and 2000s". A smaller nit-pick, but are Binky and Knut the only examples - I'm not sure two is really several. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
done. I named three polar bears, Binky, Knut and Gus.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Suggest giving a little explanation as to the topic of An Inconvenient Truth, as it's not obvious from the title but is important in context here. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't understand. What else there that they need to know other than that it's a documentary?
LittleJerry (
talk) 22:08, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I notice it's now become "the climate change documentary", which is pretty good; you might want to slightly change the focus to be clear that it's more a documentary about Gore's efforts to promote climate change as an issue ("climate change documentary" suggests a neutral, fact-finding film, when it's openly a work of advocacy). However, there's an argument for not going into too much detail here. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 08:08, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
In 2009, a Copenhagen ice statue of a polar bear with a bronze skeleton was left to melt in the sun.: from this, it sounds as though it could have been an accident, though I guess some kind of awareness-raising aim was intended? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"Raise awareness" doesn't really work on its own: raise awareness of what? (Polar bears melting in the sun?) We might need another source here if the one we have doesn't go into any real detail. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 08:11, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The article generally sets very high standards for prose: this part seems it would benefit from some more attention:
A real polar bear hunt was filmed for the 1932 documentary Igloo. In the film The Big Show (1961), two people are killed by a circus polar bear. The scenes were shot using animal trainers instead of the actors. The 1974 film The White Dawn features a polar bear being speared but it was simulated and the trained bear was unharmed. Dutch author Hans de Beer created a heroic polar bear named Lars. In the His Dark Materials fantasy novels, armour-clad polar bears perform ritualized combat bouts. In the The Jack Benny Program, Benny has a pet polar bear named Carmichael.
Part of the issue is that it reads somewhat as a grab-bag: what makes these examples interesting, useful, connected or illuminating? Are we simply mentioning every polar bear we (or our source) can find in popular culture? I'd suggest expanding out the meaning of real for Igloo (real as in they followed Inuit or similar people on an unstaged hunt, or that the actors actually shot bears?). The White Dawn sentence needs another look: perhaps something like "features a scene where a polar bear in speared; this was created by simulating the stabbing with a trained bear, who was unharmed". Similarly with Hans de Beer: I think he wrote about a polar bear rather than creating one. It also seems a little odd to give his name but not Philip Pullman's, and indeed it's usual to give the author's when first referring to a book in this article and beyond. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
They are just examples from different mediums, film, books and radio. His Dark Materials polar bears are particularly well known. Am I not suppose to mention any in modern culture? I made some changes.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:33, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It helps if we can give some coherency: things that can help that include guiding the reader through media (so "literary depictions include...") and making it clear that the examples we have picked are particularly special (are they firsts, best-known, award-winning, described as something interesting by critics...?). UndercoverClassicistT·
C 17:01, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Polar bear drawings: I'd suggest drawings of polar bears: the current phrasing sounds as if the bears are the ones making them. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Thinking on the link to
Flagship species in the See Also, have you seen
this article? Its conclusion, in essence, is that the iconic status of polar bears (and other species) for conservation has not served them particularly well. Its supplementary evidence (text 2) has and cites the rather bleak forecast that they will further decline by two thirds by 2050 and that extinction is the most probable overall outcome for all but one population within 50 years, which is a lot stronger than the estimates we currently have. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
They are using a 2008 study. The estimate in the article is based on a 2016 study.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:59, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
OK: I see the value in using more up-to-date information, but if we've only got two studies themselves (rather than work done at a step back which can explicitly evaluate the methodology, currency and so on of each study), I think
WP:DUEWEIGHT needs both predictions to be reported, since both are equally prominent in the sources we have. After all, the "Paradoxical Extinction" article is from 2018, so at least one set of researchers post-2016 thinks that's still the best prediction to use. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 08:16, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Philip Pullman's controversial His Dark Materials series: per
MOS:CONTROVERSIAL, we should be wary of this description. The MOS advice is to replace it with an explanation of what the controversies are; in this situation, I'd suggest that
WP:DUEWEIGHT would guide us to drop the epithet altogether. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Mitochondrial DNA studies in the 1990s and 2000s have supported the status of the polar bear as a derivative of the brown bear: I find this bit a little confusing: we start out by suggesting that polar bears are descended from brown bears, then explain that they're not. Part of the problem is the word have here, which puts this sentence into the
present perfect and so implies that it's "live" scholarship, rather than an outdated historical idea (we normally use the past tense for that). Suggest a rework of the two paragraphs on genetics to be clearer about what's the "old view" and what's the modern consensus; you might consider leading with the "right" answer before discussing how we've historically been "wrong" about it. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
removed some "haves". I think I have made it clear that later more recent and extensive studies support the two species being separate.
LittleJerry (
talk) 12:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It's less unclear; I think it could still be clearer. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"More extensive genetic studies have found"......"Later studies have clarified....." Its clear enough.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:53, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
At around two years old, they are capable of hunting on their own, but will return to their mother: return when? The impression I get here is that they generally hang around with their mothers but occasionally go off and hunt, but that's not clear. How does this fit with the weaning at 2-2.5 years? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I think I made that clear. The sources states both facts and I don't see a contradiction.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:22, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't have a clear picture of the pattern of life and company we're trying to sketch out from the sentence. It's not contradictory, it's just not quite bringing the reader all the way. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
while males are fully grown at twice that age: suggest clarifying whether we mean 8-10 or just 10. Do males have a wider window of ambiguity? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
$15 million dollars: one or other of $ and dollars. Suggest inflating to 2023; it's about $26 million today. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
why would they need too? it cost that much for the time. this is an animal article not a financial or economic history article. There are FA articles on movies that don't convert their budget or box office.
For example.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:58, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It's generally helpful to give readers a sense of how much historical currency amounts mean in practice. I write a lot of biographies about nineteenth-century academics, which often involve their being paid an average salary of about £300: that equally cost that much for the time, but would be nothing today. It's helpful to clarify that it was a reasonable middle-class wage, either by inflating it or by putting it into some context. Given that our readers all live in the present day, the more time passes, the further out of sync their intuitive sense of money will be from what's written in the article, and we should
generally endeavour to write content that will date as little as possible. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 10:55, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
UndercoverClassicist has made a policy backed point. You have resisted change on the basis of personal preference. (I am aware that I am simplifying in both cases.) Feel free to decline to change and see if UC thinks that it is a point they wish to oppose over. If they do (actually, even if they don't) the closing FAC coordinator will take it into account with all other reviewer comments in reaching a decision.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 13:13, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
removed. Why wasn't there demand for articles on movies to do this?
LittleJerry (
talk) 13:37, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
This is now the second or third time we've responded to a question-mark over how a piece of content is presented by removing that information altogether. Neither of those details is particularly mission-critical, but I can't see any real argument that an article without the amount is a better article than one with the amount inflated. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:35, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Its image has been used to raise awareness of the dangers of climate change: this feels like it should be expanded, as it's a fairly significant cultural phenomenon. Who first did this, and when? What have been the major milestones in it? There's a nice quote from an ad director in
this Guardian article from 2009: "We used polar bears because they are a well understood symbol of the effect that climate change is having on the natural world." Loads
here on p42-46 and in Galloway's chapter
here. Lots also
around p239 here, including Coca-Cola. Loads more on Google Books: another lovely quote
here p263: "The polar bear has become the generic brand mascot for global warming" UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Another "historically" here: we can certainly be more precise (would "on medieval and early modern maps..." be correct?) UndercoverClassicistT·
C 08:12, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
OK, but that doesn't take us closer to solving the problem. Across the article, we've got the word 'historically' used four times, as I see it. I've already lodged my objection that it's an inherently unclear term (close to
WP:WEASEL in many ways) in that it implies antiquity without actually demonstrating it. The only one that can't be fixed by a straightforward deletion is Polar bear rugs were historically popular and by the 13th and 14th centuries, where we either need to give an early bound on that popularity or simply cut down to "by the 13th and 14th centuries, polar bear rugs...". UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:38, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
One possible fossil subspecies, U. m. tyrannus, was posited in 1964 by Björn Kurtén Kurtén: repeated his surname. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Two Norwegian fairy tales, East of the Sun and West of the Moon and White-Bear-King-Valemon: we need to think about how we're doing the titles on these. Folktales tend to fall under
MOS:MINORWORKS and so take double quotes but no italicisation. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Assuming you're asking me to give your replies a look, I've done so and put in some of my own. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
UndercoverClassicist, I'd really appreciate it we would wrap this up soon or if you'd at least give me a timeline. Are there any major issues left? You've given a much-appreciated thorough review, but I can't keep working on tiny details like what to call An Inconvenient Truth. Not unless I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you.
LittleJerry (
talk) 12:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Very much my fault: it's an FAC, not a PR, but I'd always prefer to help get an article up to FA standards rather than state that it doesn't meet them and clear off. It isn't quite there yet: there are still some small mistakes of English and MoS which mean that c1a and c2 are not yet satisfied. Given that we've made quite a lot of changes in some areas without changing the sourcing, I'd like to take a look at some of those sources before voting to make sure that we're still OK for
WP:TSI. I'm happy to stop short and cast a vote on the article as it stands, if you'd like, but I wouldn't be able to vote support for it. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
UndercoverClassicist, how about waiting for
FunkMonk to finish his review? With two finished reviews, the coordinators will give you more time to work on yours.
LittleJerry (
talk) 18:18, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm also a bit on the slow side these days, so would probably drag it out even more to wait for me.
FunkMonk (
talk) 18:20, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'll give it another look when I get the chance; other things have now come up, unfortunately. Happy to ping you when I do. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 07:19, 4 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Support: I haven't had time to carry out the checks, but I don't think I'm going to in the near future, and I have no specific concerns that should hold up the FAC process. Nice work on the article and in polishing it up over this nomination. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 05:59, 20 September 2023 (UTC)reply
a455bcd9
Hi, just a few comments:
File:Polar bear range map.png: do we have a source? is it up-to-date? could we have an SVG version? What do the two colors mean?
Waiting for the new map at Map Request.
LittleJerry (
talk) 22:16, 13 August 2023 (UTC)reply
File:Polar bear subpopulation map.svg: a legend is missing for the colors and the meaning of the letters. Letters used are different from the text that says: Polar bears have been divided into 19 subpopulations labeled... For instance WHB is not listed in the article but it's on the map.
@
LittleJerry I'm away right now but I might be able to do it tomorrow afternoon, just ping me if I forget –
Isochrone (
T) 23:16, 11 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Hi @
LittleJerry could you please specify if you solely want a legend or some of the changes above? I could add an in map legend, but perhaps one in the caption using {{legend}} would be more appropriate: what do you prefer? –
Isochrone (
T) 12:17, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Please note that the legend is only part of the problem. The bigger issue is the 16 vs 19 subpopulations and the different names. {{Legend}} is probably more appropriate and easier to update.
a455bcd9 (Antoine) (
talk) 13:07, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Isochrone, I think it would be better to remove the colors and add in the Kane Basin and Norwegian Bay (NB) subpopulations.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:07, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The sources mentioned on the map (on Commons) show 19 subpopulations, including Queen Elizabeth Islands* (QE) (
this one and
this one). If we choose not to display QE on this map, we should add in the description on Commons: Map showing subpopulation of Polar Bears in the Arctic according to the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG). Note: Queen Elizabeth Islands is not considered by the PBSG to be one of the 19 recognized polar bear subpopulations inhabiting the circumpolar Arctic.
Still what I don't understand: PBSG say there are 19 subpopulations but then only list 18 of them. Did I miss something?
a455bcd9 (Antoine) (
talk) 16:57, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
That confused me too, so I changed the wording.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Hi @
LittleJerry apologies I've been slightly busy, but I've done it now. Any other specific things you want addressed? The original map also seems to have included the Queen Elizabeth Islands and I missed that-- I've corrected it now. –
Isochrone (
T) 19:07, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
We still have "Polar bears have been divided into at least 18 subpopulations" but "Map of 19 polar bear subpopulations." on the map. We could at least write Bears in and around the Queen Elizabeth Islands (QE) have been proposed as a subpopulation but this is not universally accepted.
Hi @
LittleJerry, I'm not an expert of licenses. I've just checked all images. I could easily find a libre source for all of them with the exception of:
File:Coat of arms of Greenland.svg: rules around coat of arms are complex.
Commons:Commons:Coats of arms says: "Coats of arms drawn by users based solely on the definition (blazon) without any reference to the original drawing (representation) are usually safe for upload." and according to
Coat of arms of Greenland: "The coat of arms of Greenland is a blue shield charged with an upright polar bear." so it's probably fine.
First, that's how they're presented in the sources, by binomials, and second, it is important for context, to see which belong to the same or distinct genera.
FunkMonk (
talk) 21:29, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The right side of the article is pretty much a continuous wall of images, which is a bit uneasy on the eyes. Suggest staggering a bit, pruning, or using some multiple images templates or galleries.
You present the first person you mention by nationality and occupation, but nothing by the time you reach Carl Linnaeus and others, should be consistent throughout.
First you say "it is interfertile with the brown bear" then "Modern hybrids are relatively rare in the wild", which seems a contradiction. If you mean that hybrids between the two are infertile, this should be specified.
Interfertile not infertile.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:20, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Ah, hard to see the extra letters when reading through hehe. But I think this could be expanded with a link to hybrid already then. Something like, "is is interfertible with the brown bear (able to produce hybrid offspring)" or similar.
FunkMonk (
talk) 12:45, 24 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"The genetic similarities between polar bears and some brown bears were found to be the result of interbreeding" and "Later studies have clarified that gene flow went from polar to brown bears rather than the reverse": this also seems to contradict the above.
"and the polar bear is officially considered to be monotypic" What does "officially" mean here? Taxonomy is always subjective. There can be a consensus, but that's about it.
"reconstructed the subspecies from a single fragment of an ulna, approximately 20 percent larger than expected for a polar bear." I'd say "as" instead of the comma, looks like two different statements now, though it seems they should be connected.
Jumping in, but I think that's a misreading: it's the ulna itself that was 20% larger than expected, not the reconstructed bear. If we want to connect the two clauses, suggest "which was" in place of "and". UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:16, 24 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"finding that some brown bear populations were more closely related to polar bears than other brown bears" Than other brown bears or than to other brown bears?
"This specimen, when mounted, stood 3.39 m (11 ft 1 in) tall on its hind legs." What is their average standing height? If that isn't given, this measurement doesn't mean much.
Polar and brown bear skulls seem to be quite different
[5], which is hard to appreciate when you describe the polar bear's features in isolation. Could some skeletal comparison be included? Especially since you include as much as two skeletal images in the section.
It already compares them. I have also added another adjective for the skull.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:06, 25 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"Males have long hairs on their forelegs, which is thought to attract females." This seems odd, especially since no explanation is given. The reader would expect this kind of information to be either elaborated upon or moved to the section about reproduction.
"The polar bear's liver is toxic to consume, due to the accumulation of vitamin A from their prey.[59]" This looks like it belongs under "exploitation", as it has little bearing on the animal itself.
"A 2022 study has suggested that the bears in northeast and southeast Greenland should be considered different subpopulations" So what line of study are these categories based on?
"Bears in and around the Queen Elizabeth Islands have been proposed as a subpopulation but this is not universally accepted." Then what do they belong to?
Ok, I've tried with having space between each point, may be even easier, without breaking conventions.
FunkMonk (
talk) 21:27, 24 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Looks like I forgot it, old habits die hard, but tried with the below haha.
FunkMonk (
talk) 14:26, 25 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"as well as hoofed mammals" What is there other than reindeer and muskoxes? Why not just list them?
You have multiple photos of rather sizeable juveniles, a bit of a shame that there are none of the smaller ones that you'd normally associate with cubs?
"more Norwegians were harvesting the bears" Sounds a bit odd, are we talking about the number of Norwegians or of bears? Perhaps "more bears were harvested in Norway"?
The number of Norwegians harvesting the bears on Svalbard.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:32, 27 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"Climate change has increased conflicts between the two species." This also sounds odd, as if it was written by observing aliens. Why not just "between bears and humans"?
What's the
WP:Engvar? I see both "archeological" and "behaviour", could be double checked throughout
Canadian English. Changed spelling on one.
LittleJerry (
talk) 22:16, 28 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"He resides underneath the sea floor in an underworld of the dead and had power over sea creatures." Why does it start in present tense but end in past tense, which the following sentence is also in?
58: OK, but may want to specify that it was about 13 nautical miles.
70: Can't access this source.
86: Can't access this source.
96: Can't access this page.
109: OK.
114: Can't access this page.
117: Can't access this source.
123: Can't access this page.
134: Can't access this page.
135: Can't access this page.
137: Can't access this page.
153: OK.
156: Can't access this source.
159: Can't access this source.
182: Can't access this source.
Some citations seem to have links piped under the title of the cited source, others don't. May want to standardize that. Is #173 the sole example of its kind? On which basis was #174 selected for inclusion? Otherwise, it seems like source formatting is consistent and the sources seem reliable for the task.
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk) 09:33, 3 September 2023 (UTC)reply
173 and 174 are news articles reporting on events. Added pages for cite one. Removed urls for journal articles have DOIs.
LittleJerry (
talk) 14:13, 3 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I am pretty sure there are so many incidents of polar bear attacks that it doesn't seem appropriate to me to just cherry-pick one out. Is there something special about these included in the article?
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk) 15:40, 3 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Its notable because there were so many bears that entered the area that the local government declared a state of emergency. It even has its own wiki article.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:53, 3 September 2023 (UTC)reply
This is a massive article so it may take me a while to go through all of it. But I am impressed by and admire your willingness to bring some of the most well-known animals through GAN and FAC.
First off, the lede: It is mostly good, but I am iffy about this sentence "Other food includes walruses, beluga whales and some terrestrial foods." with how it repeats the word food at the beginning and end. Terrestrial animals? Terrestrial plants and animals?
Why are the Inuit words for polar bear given in the Etymology section, but not the words in any of the other cultures that surely would have been familiar with the species (Scandinavian and other far northern Eurasian cultures, for example)? And why is nanook linked here when the link leads to an article that isn't exactly about the same thing as its use here?
Added Norse names and removed think.
LittleJerry (
talk) 09:31, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
That still skips a number of other circumpolar peoples, but those two are the most well-known groups. So acceptable, if not ideal. --
SilverTiger12 (
talk) 17:42, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
In particular. a 2011 study concluded that living polar bear populations derived their maternal lines from now extinct Irish brown bears. I think there's a stray period in there...
Compared with the brown bear, this species has a more slender build, with a narrower, flatter and smaller skull,... "more slender" -> "slenderer", which also matches the narrower/flatter/smaller pattern.
Likely outside of the scope here, but why such a variable number of premolars? I don't know if that's normal for bears but for cats, the dental formula is usually fixed.
Not discussed in sources.
LittleJerry (
talk) 09:31, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
You say why they turn yellowish, but not why they turn greyish or brownish. Is there a reason besides the bears getting dirty?
That is all for now. I'll try and get to the last section tomorrow. Happy editing,
SilverTiger12 (
talk) 01:00, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
This last section, without a doubt, is probably the trickiest in terms of what should be mentioned or not. I.e. why is the the aside about Horatio Nelson important?
I figured since he is an important figure and the incedent has been the subject of a painting.
LittleJerry (
talk) 22:58, 9 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Link Netslik, please.
Its mentioned and linked in the Naming section.
LittleJerry (
talk) 20:30, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
In that case, Netslik seems to be a misspelling of Netsilik. --
SilverTiger12 (
talk) 21:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
This may be due to the bears being more desperate for food and thus more likely to seek out human settlements. I suggest changing to "due to the bears getting desperate for food and thus more likely to..." And are they seeking out settlements or just venturing closer?
As with the other two bear species, polar bears are more likely to target no more than two people at once. "polar bears are unlikely to target more than two people at once."
I am mildly disappointed that
bjarndýrakóngur does not have an article, it sounds interesting.
For the modern portrayals, what qualifies these selections as more noteworthy/representative than other modern depictions? I'm not necessarily asking for changes, just some explanation- here, if not in the article- of why these and not others.
I am citing two books on the animal in culture rather than cherry-pickings sources that are ultimately not about them. Even then, I have to select some. The examples I'm giving represent different mediums: paintings, books, films and radio.
LittleJerry (
talk) 20:30, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
And there ends the main part of my review. --
SilverTiger12 (
talk) 17:42, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
With most everything I brought up answered, I am pleased to Support. Happy editing,
SilverTiger12 (
talk) 21:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Comments by mujinga
I have just a few prose comments:
Lead says: "specialized for preying on seals, particularly ringed seals and bearded seals" and body says "The most commonly taken species is the ringed seal, but they also prey on bearded seals and harp seals", which seems slightly different
The phrases may not contradict but they are saying different things, I'd suggest saying in the lead either "specialized for preying on seals, particularly ringed seals" (which seems most appropriate) or "specialized for preying on seals, particularly ringed seals and also bearded seals and harp seals"
Mujinga (
talk) 12:33, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't know if this needs to be in the article, but (for my own interest at least) is there an estimate of how many polar bears are out there in the wild?
It already says in the Conservation section.
LittleJerry (
talk) 01:02, 9 September 2023 (UTC)reply
thanks I misread that - worth adding the total to lead?
Mujinga (
talk) 12:32, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Bonus comment - for the reference The Guinness Book of Animal Records, you give a publisher location (Enfield, Middlesex) and you don't for other books, so I suggest to remove the location in this case
Well cheers that was a good read, I learnt fun stuff from this article, including about the
Polar bear jailMujinga (
talk) 19:22, 8 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Hi
Mujinga, I was wondering if you felt in a position to either support or oppose this nomination? Obviously, neither is obligatory. Thanks.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 12:53, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
1.5 queries still open!
Mujinga (
talk) 12:56, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
"Mothers give birth to cubs in a maternity den during the winter". I would take this to say that there are several mothers in each den, which I think is incorrect.
"more closely related to polar bears than to other brown bears, particularly the ABC Islands bears". A few words of explanation about ABC bears would be helpful as well as the link.
Whats there to explain about them?
LittleJerry (
talk) 19:59, 10 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I found the evolution section confusing. You list different studies with different views without making clear which are now regarded as most authoritative. If later studies are considered more reliable than earlier ones then you should spell this out.
I did. "More extensive genetic studies have found that the two species are in fact separate sister lineages".
LittleJerry (
talk) 19:59, 10 September 2023 (UTC)reply
More extensive does not necessarily mean disproving. This should be spelled out.
Dudley Miles (
talk) 20:52, 12 September 2023 (UTC)reply
"More extensive genetic studies have found that the two species are in fact separate sister lineages." This implies that brown and polar bears are both descended from an unnamed ancestor species. Then you say "Studies in 2011 and 2012 concluded that the genetics of brown bears passed into polar bears.[21][24] In particular, a 2011 study concluded that living polar bear populations derived their maternal lines from now extinct Irish brown bears." This implies that polar bears are not a sister lineage but a a brown bear offshoot. Also does the reference to maternal lineage mean that the paternal lineage was different or that the study only looked at mDNA? Then you say that later studies clarified that the gene flow was from polar to brown bears, but you have just said that it was the other way round. If so, it was not clarifying but contradicting.
"The transparent guard hairs forward scatter ultraviolet light between the underfur and the skin, leading to a cycle of absorption and re-emission." What is the significance of this? Does it benefit the bear in some way?
"They may cover an average of 142,332 km2 (54,955 sq mi) per year, while drifting ice allows them to move even further at 178,040 km2 (68,740 sq mi) per year." This is
False precision, giving a misleadingly exact figure for a number which can only be approximately estimated.
"Polar bears have wide home ranges. They may cover an estimated average of 142,332 km2 (54,955 sq mi) per year, while drifting ice allows them to move even further". The source says "the annual geographic range (142,332 km2, range: 3528-381,947 km2). This raises two points 1. Referring to home ranges as the area they cover is misleading both because they may never go into some areas in their home range, and, as you say, the area they cover is even larger. 2. The average you give is in the source, but if I have read it correctly, there is a variation between 3528 and 381,947, and the average tells us next to nothing useful, as well as being false precision. Maybe "Polar bears have widely varying home ranges, some only 3500 km2, while others are as large as 380,000.
Dudley Miles (
talk) 13:00, 13 September 2023 (UTC)reply
"though they may be less likely to if they have not eaten in a long time". "may be" seems an unnecessary double qualification. If the behaviour has been observed, then they are less likely.
"The bear's long lifespan and ability to consistently produce young each year". You say above that cubs are weaned at 2 to 2 and a half years old and latating females cannot conceive. This means that a female cannot produce young each year.
"Norsemen in Greenland traded polar bear furs in the Middle Ages.[165] In Russia, Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land were important commercial centres for polar bear products, the former already used in 1556." This is confusing. You refer to Norsemen, who were Scandinavians who spoke Old Norse in the early Middle Ages, 5th to 10th centuries. Then, apparently referring to the same period you mention Russian centres, one as early as 1566, which is post-Middle Ages. Also, "the former" presumably refers to Franz Josef Land, but it could be more clearly expressed.
It doesn't say Russians were hunting them in the same period. They are talked about in two different sentences.
LittleJerry (
talk) 20:45, 17 September 2023 (UTC)reply
"Over 150,000 polar bears in total were either killed or captured in both Russia and Svalbard," What does "both" mean here? That a total of 300,000 were killed or captured?
"Though popularly thought of as the most dangerous bear, the polar bear is no more aggressive than other species and the ratio of predatory to non-predatory attacks is similar to the black bear." This seems an odd comment. "the ratio of predatory to non-predatory attacks" is an unclear concept for a layman. More importantly, it does not make sense as a measure of aggression, which would better be reflected by the number of attacks as a ratio of the number of bears of each species.
"The World Wide Fund for Nature has sold stuffed polar bears as part of its "Arctic Home" campaign." This is misleading. A "stuffed polar bear" would be a stuffed full sized skin of a real polar bear, but it links to
Teddy bear, which is obviously quite different.
Dudley Miles (
talk) 16:56, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
There is no policy that says photographs need RS. Some things are just easy to know and observe I've never had to deal with this in previous FAs.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Evolution: The following cladogram is ... per
MOS:ACCIM, avoid use of "following", since the image may not actually follow the text in all presentations.
Characteristics, the "Skull" caption only makes sense in the context of being adjacent to the image captioned "Polar bear skeleton", so another
MOS:ACCIM issue.
Social life: Young males play-fighting (image caption) What WP:RS says these bears are male? This seems to be taken from the Commons image description, but that's not a WP:RS.
,People can tell the difference between a male and female when up-close. This is a featured video.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Reproduction and development: Courting male approaching female (image caption). Same question as above. Somebody took a bunch of photos of two bears and uploaded them to commons. What WP:RS identifies these as a male and a female engaged in courtship?
The picture was uploaded as part of Russian Science Photo Competition 2023. It is actually part of a
sequence of photos of these bears interacting Polar bear are normally solitary on the sea ice expect for courting bears. Its very easy to tell if two bears are courting.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
As a general comment, please review all of the images to ensure that the captions are traceable to
WP:RS. I do not consider commons image descriptions to be RS.
Ha! I was checking that my understanding of policy was correct as you wrote that.
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions makes no mention of citations or referencing being necessary, indeed "Not every image needs a caption". So many or most captions will not need to be traceable to
WP:RS. The exceptions of course are those "likely to be challenged", in which case they will; reasonable editors may differ over which category any given caption falls into. Perhaps
RoySmith could suggest which uncited captions they consider "likely to be challenged"?
Gog the Mild (
talk) 16:43, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Well, we could have a different conversation about whether information presented in image captions should be held to the same standard as information presented in the main text, but if that's not a FACR, I defer to those more knowledgeable.
RoySmith(talk) 17:04, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
One caption is cited already. I think the two others which I would feel a little happier to see cited are:
"The loss of sea ice has led to more open water and more pressure on the bears to swim great distances."
"Map from the U.S. Geological Survey shows projected changes in polar bear habitat from 2001 to 2010 and 2041 to 2050."
Gog the Mild (
talk) 16:43, 20 September 2023 (UTC)reply
@
Mark Arsten: On a non-content note, I see the article was indef semi-protected 10 years ago, apparently due to vandalism. I don't see any reason to keep it protected 10 years later, so I've removed that.
Hi
RoySmith, I was wondering if there was more to come, or if you felt in a position to either support or oppose this nomination? Obviously, neither is obligatory. Thanks.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 12:56, 21 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't feel qualified to support or oppose, so I'll just be content with the comments I've made so far. Thanks for asking.
RoySmith(talk) 14:37, 21 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Closing note: This
candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see
WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the
bot goes through.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 16:02, 21 September 2023 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Here we have another well-known animal, the top predator of the Arctic and icon of climate change. I've put off doing this article for a long time but a couple months ago I began rewriting it. We already have
Knut (polar bear) as an FA, and its time for the species itself to take its rightful place on the mammal list. I wish to have this as a TFA for
International Polar Bear Day on February 27. Special thanks to
WereSpielChequers and
Danbloch.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:52, 9 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Note:
FunkMonk,
Jens Lallensack and any more reviewers, please add your four ~ at the end of each bulletin so I can reply to each easier. Thank you.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:40, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Support from Jens
The bear is called nanook by the Inuit. The Netsilik cultures have different names for bears – Do the Netsilik also use the word "nanook", since they are Inuit, but have these other words in addition?
Different subspecies have been proposed including Ursus maritimus maritimus (Phipps in 1774), U. m. marinus (Pallas 1776). – Why aren't these listed in the taxonbox, while an extinct, also questionable subspecies is listed? And should there be an "and" instead of the comma?
Heading "Natural history": Isn't "natural history" a term with a much broader scope? It surely includes evolution, but of all things, this section is under "taxonomy" instead. I suggest to rename it into "Behaviour and life history" or similar. --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 01:12, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I see that some people use this term this way. But I doubt this is what the average reader will understand. Look in the dictionary
[2] how many definitions there are, most of them very broad. Why use this vague term that can mean anything, when more precise alternatives are available? --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 02:04, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The paper gives this as an extimate though, and explicitly says it was not measured. We have to make clear it's an estimate. --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 16:47, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Sexual dimorphism in the species is particularly high compared with most other mammals – Can we remove the "particularly", or is there something else that is also high?
Some other mammals like elephant seals have higher sexual dimporhism.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:31, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Male polar bears have larger heads than females. – Proportionally, I assume? And maybe this information is better placed together with the sentence on sexual dimorphism?
Male polar bears have larger heads than females. The snout profile is curved, resembling a "Roman nose". – Two pieces of information that don't fit the reading flow (the text before and after this is about something else; this seem to have been inserted inside but destroys the logical succession of information. Can it be placed somewhere else?
They move around by walking or galloping. – The implication of this sentence would be that they lack a trot, in contrast to most other larger mammals. Can you check this? If so – it should be explicitly mentioned, as this is the main point.
I think it is an important point, though. This paper
[4] explicitly states that they never trot. Can we add this back in, stating that they walk and gallop but not trot? --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 16:47, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The feet are hairier than in other bear species, which allows then to walk on snow and sea ice – "which allows them"? Also, please specify what the function is: Traction, insulation, or both?
Fat reserves allow polar bears to fast for months. – This piece of information is a bit lonely and isolated. I think it is relevant in context of the low-food period during summer, and could be better placed where this is discussed?
But isn't this very (or even impossibly) small when the ceiling height is 1.2 m? The circumference should be greater than twice the ceiling height, right? --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 14:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)reply
A 2018 study found that ten percent or less of prime bear habitat in the Chukchi Sea is vulnerable to a potential spill, but could harm – I think there is a grammar issue, as it basically says that bear habitat would "harm" which makes no sense.
The "Cultural significance" section has nothing about Russia, and therefore seems to be biased towards Europe and North America. --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 11:27, 14 August 2023 (UTC)reply
OK. The Russian article has something but English sources for that stuff are hard to find. --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 14:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)reply
This is all from me – I didn't look at sources but the prose looks good! --
Jens Lallensack (
talk) 11:15, 14 August 2023 (UTC)reply
UndercoverClassicist
My admiration always goes to those willing to take on the big topics, especially one with so much call for judicious summarising. Hugely knowledgeable and generally very clear throughout. My main concerns are the heavy reliance on primary sources for scientific claims, which I've explained in a little more detail below; it would also help clarity if certain people, places and concepts were more fully introduced and explained for
non-expert readers.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 08:54, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Tidyup
Suggest briefly introducing people by (some or all of) period, nationality and profession on first mention: the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant, the Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, the British explorer Constantine John Phipps.
I have before, but was told to stop in a previous FA.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:12, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Due to its adaptations to a marine environment, some have placed the polar bear in its own genus Thalarctos: I think we want a comma before Thalarctos.
Mitochondrial DNA studies in the 1990s and 2000s have supported the status of the polar bear as a derivative of the brown bear, finding that some brown bear populations were more closely related to polar bears than other brown bears, particularly the ABC Islands bears.: the three citations cited here look like primary sources to me (that is, the studies themselves rather than someone else talking about the studies). This isn't a medical article, so
WP:MEDRS doesn't strictly apply, but that page points out that primary sources are particularly unreliable for scientific studies, since it's common for their results not to be replicated and so for their conclusions to be discarded later. Can we cite to a secondary source? This issue pops up a few times in that section (in fact, it seems to be almost entirely cited to primary sources).
You mean I'm not supposed to cite scientific articles? What? I cited several scientific articles in my other FAs with no problem. I would really like to get a second opinion. @
FAC coordinators:
?
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:32, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm not an expert, but I thought replication was more of an issue with experiments than descriptive studies.
UndercoverClassicist, what source would you prefer for this information that would state the mainstream scientific view? (
t ·
c) buidhe 17:26, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
That's a fair point; I'll have a look through and see if any of the cited articles actually report an experiment - please consider this one shelved for now.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 18:09, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
OK, some are experiments (Owen, M. A.; Swaisgood, R. R.; Slocomb, C.; Amstrup, S. C.; Durner, G. M.; Simac, K.; Pessier, A. P. (2014). "An experimental investigation of chemical communication in the polar bear), some (most?) aren't. I think there's some wisdom in what
WP:MEDRS says: Ideal sources for [scientific] information include: review articles (especially systematic reviews) published in reputable medical journals; academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers; and guidelines or position statements from national or international expert bodies. It's not a deal-breaker for me, but I'd encourage the swapping in of secondary sources (books and review articles, in particular) if and when those exist. After all, it's not all that uncommon for the results of a project or investigation to get through peer review to publication, only then to be widely rejected by the academic community for some methodological reason or other, and that holds both for strictly experimental work and that which is more descriptive.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 20:55, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Thinking on this a bit more (and I apologise for now replying to myself twice), there's a bit of a
WP:SUMMARYSTYLE problem here. Individual scientific studies are very close to the epistemological coal face: a Wikipedia article, particularly a high-level one that might (or does) encapsulate several sub-articles, should be a few steps back. If the information only exists in primary studies/experiments but hasn't made its way into books or review articles yet, and those studies haven't yet been cited by others, are we really summarising the established scholarship? This isn't to say that we should never cite a recent study or experiment, but to raise a query as to the degree to which we're doing it here.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 21:36, 11 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Most scientific articles on animals are observations not experiments. The DNA studies are observations. You can check the that these articles are cited multiple times. Hailer and colleagues (2012) is cited 280 times for example. Papers talk about previous studies all the time. I thought that using "primary sources" is more of a problem for history because citing historical documents requires interpretation and thus would be OR. This is different from citing the conclusions of scientific researchers. Paleontology articles rely heavily on peer-reviewed papers. You can't expect them to cite only books and review articles. If I just cited books, I would be in gross violation of 1c: a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature.
Hog Farm, need you to weigh in.
LittleJerry (
talk) 22:13, 11 August 2023 (UTC)reply
WP:MEDRS applies to biomedical articles only and so is not, IMO, relevant here.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 16:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
All fair points. Given that the replication issue isn't relevant here, I don't think there's a real problem with the current citations. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:38, 14 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Lindqvist and colleagues (2010) estimated that the polar bear lineage split from other brown bears around 150,000 years ago.: definitely parenthetical: if the date is felt important, could change to "In 2010, the biologist Charlotte Lindqvist and her colleagues...". Again, I think this is cited to a primary source. There's a few similar cases in the same section.
I've referenced studies this way before in other FAs and "In 2010, the biologist Charlotte Lindqvist and her colleagues" just seems unnecessary.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:19, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Parenthetical referencing seems to me to be a clear-cut break with our style guidelines, which isn't compatible with FA criterion 2: I'm always sympathetic to a
WP:IAR argument if there's a situation-specific reason to suspend that part of the criteria, but I'm not sure that "it's got through the net before" is really one of those.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 21:39, 11 August 2023 (UTC)reply
@
FAC coordinators:
? You've reviewed and readed my nominations before.. I honestly don't think this violates wiki rules.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:49, 11 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Lindqvist needs introducing, and UC's suggestion seems the obvious way of doing this. No doubt there are other ways. If I were reviewing I would also be unhappy with the current phrasing. I do not believe that there is a primary source issue, but have an open mind if someone wishes to persuade me differently.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 16:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
particularly high compared to most other mammals: it's less of a rule than people think, but many readers will prefer compared with when not talking about numbers.
The polar bear's liver accumulates high concentrations of vitamin A from their prey, making it toxic: little ambiguity in practice, but grammatically it ought to refer to the prey. Suggest "The polar bear's liver is toxic from the accumulation of..."
Their range includes Greenland, Canada, the US state of Alaska, Russia and the Svalbard Archipelago of Norway: why "the US state"? It makes the sentence more clunky and we haven't said "the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland".
One study found they can swim an average of 154.2 km (95.8 mi) with an average duration of 3.4 days: slightly wonky phrasing ("I ran three miles with a duration of half an hour"?): suggest something like "they can swim for an average of 3.4 days at a time, and travel an average of..."
Adult males require less shelter for sleeping as they are less at risk from other bears.: is it worth spelling out why the others are at risk from other bears?
I would think that would be obvious, males are bigger than females and adult male are of great size and less likely to be messed with.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:19, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
This links to another point, but (for example) messed with and eaten?
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 18:10, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It doesn't say specifically.
LittleJerry (
talk) 18:38, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
other female-offspring units: I think this is a unit of a female and an offspring, in which case it should be an endash rather than a hyphen (
MOS:ENBETWEEN). The same goes for blue-violet further up if we mean colours between blue and violet.
In their southern range, especially near Hudson Bay and James Bay, polar bears endure all summer without sea ice to hunt from. Hence they must subsist more on terrestrial foods: consider joining these two sentences; the second sits a little awkwardly on its own.
Polar bears are especially susceptible to Trichinella, a parasitic roundworm they contract through cannibalism: we didn't mention cannibalism in the diet section; is this a normal part of bears' diet?
In more modern times, Hollywood actors would pose on bearskin rugs: can we be more specific on the time frame? Hollywood has been around as a centre for film since 1911; Monroe didn't start acting for another 35 years.
There's a lot of people who could do with an introduction in the first paragraph of "Captivity": in particular, we should clarify which James I we're talking about (consider "James VI and I", as he's not James I in Scotland) per
MOS:NOFORCELINK.
Many zoos in Europe and North America have stopped keeping polar bears due to the costs of their exhibits: what makes these exhibits so expensive?
The source doesn't make it very clear, their design is already discussed.
LittleJerry (
talk) 20:48, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
MOS:BIRTHDATE advises against giving people's lifespan, except at the start of an article where they're the subject. Admittedly, it doesn't give specific guidance on polar bears, but I'd put the ranges into prose if they're felt important.
Give a rough date range for the Dorset culture, The Grimsey Man and the Bear and The Tale of Auðun of the West Fjords.
Give one. No dates are given for the other two.
LittleJerry (
talk) 20:48, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't follow; we know that the Dorset Culture existed from 500 BCE to between 1000 CE and 1500 CE, and I think it's germane to readers to know that we're talking about something that's very much a historical rather than a contemporary object. I didn't get much on a quick Google for the Grimsey man, unfortunately; appreciate that folklore can be a very tricky one to date even approximately.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 21:02, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't see that as necessary, especially such that's such a wide time period. No date is give for the art specifically.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:16, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
We disagree on this one, but it's not a make-or-break issue for FAC. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It is considered to be a powerful symbol for the dangers of climate change and has been used to raise awareness: I think you have to raise awarness of something.
There seems to be a space before each of the EFNs. Are these cited at the end of that sentence in body text? I'd suggest including the citation in the footnote as well, to better reflect where readers will be looking when they need it.
UndercoverClassicist (
talk) 21:05, 10 August 2023 (UTC)reply
What was the thinking behind that removal? We now have the term, also without a date, in the infobox, and no real way for the reader to see the link between that and the dates 130,000- to 110,000-year-old jaw bone given in the body text. Seems like a step backwards. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:04, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I removed it because the range would give the impression that fossils are found as early as 2.59 mya. I just don't see the need to give big date ranges. They can see the years in the body and the era name in the infobox.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:38, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The polar bear is both the largest living species of bear and the largest land carnivore: grammatically, living only modifies species of bear, but surely needs to qualify land carnivore as well. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Compared to the brown bear, this species has a more slender build: compared with as before. Also for Analysis of the copy number variation in the genes of polar bears compared to brown bears unless CNV is a numerical quantity (and perhaps even then, just to keep it neat). UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The teeth are adapted for a more carnivorous diet than the brown bear: either than the brown bear's or than that of the brown bear. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
serving a similar function to the lion's mane: I'd explain briefly what that function is: per
WP:POPE, we shouldn't assume that our readers know anything about lions. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Polar bears are pure white after they molt and gain a more yellowish colouration as they are exposed more to the sun: as written, the more is redundant; I'd suggest slightly rephrasing to Polar bears' fur is ... and gains ... as it is exposed to the sun, since other parts of polar bears are not white. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Overheating is countered by a layer of highly vascularized striated muscle tissue and finely controlled blood vessels, along with submerging in water: the along with doesn't quite read right for me; I'd suggest expanding it out into a sentence so that we have the balance of one sentence of physiological adaptations and the other of behavioural ones. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
the roof of the head isn't a very common term, I don't think.
Skull roof would be possible, but is anything lost from "top of the head"? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
They are relatively small, which may be an adaption against blowing snow and snow-blindness. They are dichromats,: they is used twice, but I think it's the polar bears whom you'd call dichromats, not their eyes? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The polar bear's liver is toxic: toxic to humans, to most animals or similar? I'm sure something can eat it. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The source just says its toxic, presumably to anything that will eat it.
LittleJerry (
talk) 11:56, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'd clarify "toxic to humans", particularly if that's just a presumption and not directly supported by the source. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Two Norwegian fairy tales, East of the Sun and West of the Moon and White-Bear-King-Valemon involve)): comma after Valemon. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Typo in James VI and I of Britian. Britain isn't a country; as he's got three kingdoms and two numerals, better kept as "of Scotland, England and Ireland". UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
allowing for a more immersive experience for the guests reads a little like advertising-speak: suggest cutting or something more factual like "a plexiglass tunnel, through which visitors can observe the bears from underneath the water". In the image caption, the tunnel is glass; plexiglass is a plastic. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm not sure about post-WWII in body text, and there's a
WP:POPE argument against using a historical event as a simple chronological marker. Suggest "in the second half of the twentieth century", "from the 1950s" or similar. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
We could give dates for when Binky and Knut became famous (Knut in the 2000s, Binky for maulings in the early 1990s). UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
that's why I added the date ranges.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:15, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
We previously had the dates of their lifespans in parentheses, which the MOS specifically advises against. Fortunately, there's no MOS prohibition against writing a sentence that includes a date. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The sources don't give dates.
LittleJerry (
talk) 01:11, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
There most definitely are sources which tell you when Knut became famous and when Binky mauled people. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 10:55, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
We could do with a little more on the history of the Coca-Cola bears (in particular, when and where they were first used). UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
No. We have an article on that. This will only bloat and unbalance the section.
LittleJerry (
talk) 10:49, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Being chronologically accurate would help: we've said that it "is featured ... in many advertisements ... for Coca-Cola." This puts the statement firmly in the present tense, but it goes back about a century: I don't think it would bloat an article of this size to say something like "since 1922, the polar bear has featured in advertisements for Coca-Cola". UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
a result of there being less odours in their Arctic habitat: fewer odours, as odours are countable. This sentence doesn't read brilliantly and I'm not sure it's quite the point: isn't it more about whether polar bears use (or can use) odours for things that they need to do, particularly finding food? If sea ice suddenly started smelling of lavender, that wouldn't encourage polar bears to develop better noses. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
involved in keratin creating proteins: I would definitely hyphenate this
compound modifier; there are others like fatty acid breakdown and polar bear populations that are more a matter of taste. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
that too complicated. the article itself is overly technical.
LittleJerry (
talk) 11:58, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Including technical terms without explaining them makes the article less accessible, not more. If we're going to make readers read the term ito cell, we should give them a reasonable chance of understanding what it means, and
MOS:NOFORCELINK tells us that that should be more than just a link to another page. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Polar bears have been recorded just 25 km (16 mi) from the North Pole: the just reads as slight editorialising to me: suggest rephrasing to "the most northerly recorded sighting of a polar bear was 25 km..." or simply cutting that word. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
but have historically been recorded visiting there if they can reach it via sea ice: what does historically mean and add here? It sounds like it means "in pre-modern times" or similar; I'd either clarify or cut. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
A 2022 study has suggested that the bears in eastern Greenland should be divided into north and south: this could be slightly expanded to clarify that researchers have posited that there are two distinct subpopulations on Greenland, one living in the north and one in the south, rather than that they have proposed segregating the bears. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The bears can also be divided: all of them, presumably, but as written it could be just those in Greenland. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Fat reserves allow polar bears to fast for months: fasting, particularly in the linked article, generally refers to a voluntary process; better as "survive without food" or similar? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Can we put non-English terms (such as apitiliit') into the appropriate language template (lang|und for undetermined, if nothing else) for the benefit of screen readers and the Wiki software? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I have no idea how to do that.
LittleJerry (
talk) 13:29, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
In this case, {{lang|und|apitiliit}}, if you don't know what language it is, or swap "und" for
one of these if you do. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Per
MOS:NOFORCELINK, suggest explaining technical terms that are vital to the reader's comprehension, such as introgression, copy number variation and matriline. We've done this well for enzyme. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
During walrus hunts, the sight of an approaching polar bear can cause aggregations of walruses to panic and stampede.: presumably this is true not during walrus hunts as well. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The clause during walrus hunts in this position implies that what follows happens specifically during walrus hunts (cf. "on Sundays, the bus runs ten minutes late"). However, the sight of an approaching polar bear can presumably cause aggregations of walruses to panic whether that bear has decided to hunt them or not. We therefore need to move things around: perhaps something like "The sight of an approaching polar bear can cause aggregations of walruses to panic and stampede. Bears will take advantage of this during hunts by provoking walruses into stampeding, and then looking for young that have been crushed or separated from the group during the turmoil." UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The bears usually tolerate them but will charge a fox that gets too close when it is feeding: I think it here is the bear, not the fox, but the sentence is written the other way around. The bears are plural here, so we need when they are feeding. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Females with cubs often defer a carcass to an approaching adult male: I don't think you can use defer transitively unless we mean "delay". UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
A polar bear family stays near the dens for roughly two weeks, during this time the cubs will move and play around while the mother mostly rests: better to split with either a semicolon, colon or full stop, as the second clause is a full and fairly substantial sentence. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I think we need to explain Denmark (Greenland) as a signatory: is that Denmark on behalf of Greenland? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm not sure Denmark (via Greenland) is any clearer: in particular, it leaves very ambiguous which of the two countries' names was actually written on the document. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 10:56, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Neater perhaps as "of which Greenland is an autonomous territory"? The political status of Greenland is a hot issue there and I suspect "controls" would raise eyebrows in some quarters. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Two Norwegian fairy tales, East of the Sun and West of the Moon and White-Bear-King-Valemon, involve white bears turning into men and sleeping with women: advise against sleeping with per
MOS:IDIOM and being a little more direct. Would either of seducing, raping or having sex with (mindful of
WP:NOTCENSORED work? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
A particularly common image is that of a polar bear stranded on an ice floe.: we've said that this is particularly common, but haven't actually given any examples of its existence, when and how it has been seen, or so on. Is this sentence also cited to Born? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Bonn states "polar bear, adrift on a melting ice floe, a polar bear desperately clutching to some blocks of ice, or a polar bear expressing emotions of sadness or distress; these images no longer appear to present a particular animal, place, or time".
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm not sure that's quite the same, but I'm willing to believe it's clearer in context. The point stands, though: it's better to show as well as tell and give some examples. There's an advert for the Nissan Leaf which seems to be discussed a lot in the sources. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 17:00, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
done. As for Nissan leaf, when it comes to cultural references in the main animal article (as opposed to its own seperate article), I don't like to cherrypick sources that are not about the animal or news articles. If a cultural reference is not in my polar bear books or a peer reviewed article about the cultural impact of the animals, then its not that important.
LittleJerry (
talk) 17:16, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
To hammer home this point. Here's what I was told during a previous FAC. I have concerns about using a google search to decide what "re: culture: how are you deciding which examples to include and which to omit? - the best method would be to actually consult books on the animal and see what the academic scholars think is important in regards to culture - because google's results are going to vary depending on the location of the search and other factors we can't know due to google's opaque algorithims.LittleJerry (
talk) 17:18, 17 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Yes: this is all true. The reason to include the Leaf advert is precisely because it's discussed in printed books, academic research and other things that meet
WP:HQRS, which is the core of
WP:DUEWEIGHT. I think I pulled out a few examples in another comment; I'm not in a place to re-find those at the moment, but a Google Books search will give you a good starting point.
WP:DUEWEIGHT means that we need to include what's discussed in the sources as a whole, not merely those that happen to be on our individual bookshelves. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 23:15, 17 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Its not about reliable sources. It's about whether those reliable sources are about polar bears. I’ll see what I can do.LittleJerry (
talk) 00:06, 18 August 2023 (UTC)reply
A native polar bear hunt: native is not a good term (and can be read as anachronistic, at best, or even somewhat racist): everyone's a native of somewhere. If we can't name the people, we should be able to (at least roughly) name the place. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
two people are killed by a circus polar bear. The scenes were shot using animal trainers instead of the actors: this bit still doesn't read great. I wonder whether replacing two people with two characters would make it better, and make the two sentences fit a little more smoothly? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
coats-of-arms, like the coat of arms of Greenland: we should be consistent on hyphenation, especially in such close proximity. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
However, it may in fact be a large brown bear: since this species is extinct, we should refer to it in the past tense. Suggest adding roughly when it's supposed to have lived.
Reading again, this sentence feels a little half-done: do we mean that U. maritimus tyrannus was a large subspecies of the brown bear, or that the example(s) we have are U. arctos pure and simple? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The source just says it may be a brown bear.
LittleJerry (
talk) 13:19, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
OK, but we need to be clear, accurate and as good as a professional encyclopaedia: if we've got one source and it doesn't allow us to do that, we need to find some more.
This book (p190) gives some useful context: tyrannus is "known" only from a single bone (an ulna), and the evidence for it belonging to a new species of polar bear is that it's extremely big. However, it might have come from an extremely large but otherwise normal brown bear, meaning that the species never existed. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:01, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I think the "missing link" at the moment is to let readers know that we've only "identified" a single putative animal: if they're imagining a species with multiple members, the sentence is a little confusing. It also seems to be fairly undisputed in post-2000ish HRQS that the ulna was from a brown bear and that tyrannus did not exist (
e.g. here p36, which also gives it as a grizzly). Suggest something like:
"One possible fossil subspecies, Ursus maritimus tyrannus, was posited in 1964 by
Björn Kurtén (
paper here for citation). Kurtén reconstructed the subspecies from a single fragment of an ulna, approximately 20% larger than expected for a polar bear.(cite: Kurten 1964: p10) However, re-evaluation in the 21st century has indicated that the fragment likely comes from a large brown or grizzly bear."
As this is still the main article for ursus maritimus tyrannus, I think we're justified in giving it three sentences: I can see an argument for omitting Kurtén's name if brevity is a concern, but most of those details seem to be found in most sources discussing tyrannus, so there's probably a stronger
WP:DUEWEIGHT argument for giving the story this much space. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:51, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I think we're still behind the scholarship with that 2008 article: Harington cites a personal comment from the director of the NHM that it's likely to be a brown bear, and subsequent sources that show more than a passing familiarity with the question are pretty unequivocal that it was (
here and
here, for instance: see also
this very sceptical reception of Kurten from 1999). In other words, I think our article leaves the question more open than it is: suggest citing one or more of these sources and amending to something a bit more decisive. I suggested one formulation in the blockquote above, but am not particularly wedded to that phrasing. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 20:14, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
This bit still needs some attention, I'm afraid. Something's gone wrong in the writing or editing. We also need to sort out the final sentence (currently "However, it is currently considered to be a large individual brown bear"), which no longer makes sense in context: we need to be clear that the current understanding is that the ulna itself came from a brown bear. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:27, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I changed it to your proposed wording.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:51, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Why is
charismatic megafauna linked in the See Also but not mentioned in the article? More generally, I'm a little surprised not to see a subsection on conservation and protection efforts (we have one on conservation, which is really about threats, with a paragraph on laws: has anyone done anything a bit more hands-on?). We briefly discuss polar bears in zoos, but as a continuation of circuses. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The biggest threat to polar bears is climate change. The way to stop that is to limit carbon emissions, which is being done for the sake of the world. There isn't much to talk about for anything else other than hunting regulations. There's a reason that polar bears have remained in much of their historic range so far.
LittleJerry (
talk) 11:18, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
You already get the impression that polars bears are well known and famous animals. What does it matter whether I mention the term charismatic megafauna? I didn't have to for other famous mammals. Not using a certain phrase (which few people have heard of) has nothing to do with due weight. And many animals breed in captivity, there is nothing special about polar bears. They are no programs to breed and release them into the wild.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It's more the concept of "charismatic megafauna" as used in conservation media: how it relates to creating iconic focuses for generalised issues - in particular, the role of polar bears as a kind of metonym for the effects of climate change. We've mentioned the connection between polar bears and the popular understanding of climate change but not suggested any special status for them, which is at odds with HQRS who do discuss this issue. As for the phrase itself, they are used so consistently alongside it that it seems like an odd omission, especially when we acknowledge in "see also" that it's a term of relevance to our readers.
Our source disagrees on the specialness of polar bears; many animals breed in captivity, but not many marine mammals. In the words of
WP:GVF, the "comprehensive" standard requires that no major fact or detail is omitted. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 10:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Nissan Leaf is a car, not a company: this bit needs another look. I'd suggest keeping
WP:POPE in mind. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
References are quite inconsistent about whether to use title case or sentence case for titles. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Females with cubs often leave a carcass to an approaching adult male, though they may be less likely to if they haven't eaten in a long time: avoid contractions. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
female defense polygyny: suggest hyphenating, as the other two have nothing to do with female defence. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Personal taste perhaps, but I wouldn't include ... at the start of quotations: the lack of capitalisation makes clear that we're not passing it off as a full sentence, but it's such a small point that I think readability outweighs strict adherence to the original. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Several captive polar bears were given celebrity status in the late 20th and 21st century: I think you can gain celebrity status, but I don't think you can be given it (by whom?). "The late 20th and 21st century" isn't quite grammatical: we could go with "the late 20th and early 21st centuries", or "in the 1990s and 2000s". A smaller nit-pick, but are Binky and Knut the only examples - I'm not sure two is really several. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
done. I named three polar bears, Binky, Knut and Gus.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Suggest giving a little explanation as to the topic of An Inconvenient Truth, as it's not obvious from the title but is important in context here. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't understand. What else there that they need to know other than that it's a documentary?
LittleJerry (
talk) 22:08, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I notice it's now become "the climate change documentary", which is pretty good; you might want to slightly change the focus to be clear that it's more a documentary about Gore's efforts to promote climate change as an issue ("climate change documentary" suggests a neutral, fact-finding film, when it's openly a work of advocacy). However, there's an argument for not going into too much detail here. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 08:08, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
In 2009, a Copenhagen ice statue of a polar bear with a bronze skeleton was left to melt in the sun.: from this, it sounds as though it could have been an accident, though I guess some kind of awareness-raising aim was intended? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"Raise awareness" doesn't really work on its own: raise awareness of what? (Polar bears melting in the sun?) We might need another source here if the one we have doesn't go into any real detail. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 08:11, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The article generally sets very high standards for prose: this part seems it would benefit from some more attention:
A real polar bear hunt was filmed for the 1932 documentary Igloo. In the film The Big Show (1961), two people are killed by a circus polar bear. The scenes were shot using animal trainers instead of the actors. The 1974 film The White Dawn features a polar bear being speared but it was simulated and the trained bear was unharmed. Dutch author Hans de Beer created a heroic polar bear named Lars. In the His Dark Materials fantasy novels, armour-clad polar bears perform ritualized combat bouts. In the The Jack Benny Program, Benny has a pet polar bear named Carmichael.
Part of the issue is that it reads somewhat as a grab-bag: what makes these examples interesting, useful, connected or illuminating? Are we simply mentioning every polar bear we (or our source) can find in popular culture? I'd suggest expanding out the meaning of real for Igloo (real as in they followed Inuit or similar people on an unstaged hunt, or that the actors actually shot bears?). The White Dawn sentence needs another look: perhaps something like "features a scene where a polar bear in speared; this was created by simulating the stabbing with a trained bear, who was unharmed". Similarly with Hans de Beer: I think he wrote about a polar bear rather than creating one. It also seems a little odd to give his name but not Philip Pullman's, and indeed it's usual to give the author's when first referring to a book in this article and beyond. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
They are just examples from different mediums, film, books and radio. His Dark Materials polar bears are particularly well known. Am I not suppose to mention any in modern culture? I made some changes.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:33, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It helps if we can give some coherency: things that can help that include guiding the reader through media (so "literary depictions include...") and making it clear that the examples we have picked are particularly special (are they firsts, best-known, award-winning, described as something interesting by critics...?). UndercoverClassicistT·
C 17:01, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Polar bear drawings: I'd suggest drawings of polar bears: the current phrasing sounds as if the bears are the ones making them. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Thinking on the link to
Flagship species in the See Also, have you seen
this article? Its conclusion, in essence, is that the iconic status of polar bears (and other species) for conservation has not served them particularly well. Its supplementary evidence (text 2) has and cites the rather bleak forecast that they will further decline by two thirds by 2050 and that extinction is the most probable overall outcome for all but one population within 50 years, which is a lot stronger than the estimates we currently have. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
They are using a 2008 study. The estimate in the article is based on a 2016 study.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:59, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
OK: I see the value in using more up-to-date information, but if we've only got two studies themselves (rather than work done at a step back which can explicitly evaluate the methodology, currency and so on of each study), I think
WP:DUEWEIGHT needs both predictions to be reported, since both are equally prominent in the sources we have. After all, the "Paradoxical Extinction" article is from 2018, so at least one set of researchers post-2016 thinks that's still the best prediction to use. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 08:16, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Philip Pullman's controversial His Dark Materials series: per
MOS:CONTROVERSIAL, we should be wary of this description. The MOS advice is to replace it with an explanation of what the controversies are; in this situation, I'd suggest that
WP:DUEWEIGHT would guide us to drop the epithet altogether. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Mitochondrial DNA studies in the 1990s and 2000s have supported the status of the polar bear as a derivative of the brown bear: I find this bit a little confusing: we start out by suggesting that polar bears are descended from brown bears, then explain that they're not. Part of the problem is the word have here, which puts this sentence into the
present perfect and so implies that it's "live" scholarship, rather than an outdated historical idea (we normally use the past tense for that). Suggest a rework of the two paragraphs on genetics to be clearer about what's the "old view" and what's the modern consensus; you might consider leading with the "right" answer before discussing how we've historically been "wrong" about it. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
removed some "haves". I think I have made it clear that later more recent and extensive studies support the two species being separate.
LittleJerry (
talk) 12:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It's less unclear; I think it could still be clearer. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"More extensive genetic studies have found"......"Later studies have clarified....." Its clear enough.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:53, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
At around two years old, they are capable of hunting on their own, but will return to their mother: return when? The impression I get here is that they generally hang around with their mothers but occasionally go off and hunt, but that's not clear. How does this fit with the weaning at 2-2.5 years? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I think I made that clear. The sources states both facts and I don't see a contradiction.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:22, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't have a clear picture of the pattern of life and company we're trying to sketch out from the sentence. It's not contradictory, it's just not quite bringing the reader all the way. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 00:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
while males are fully grown at twice that age: suggest clarifying whether we mean 8-10 or just 10. Do males have a wider window of ambiguity? UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
$15 million dollars: one or other of $ and dollars. Suggest inflating to 2023; it's about $26 million today. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
why would they need too? it cost that much for the time. this is an animal article not a financial or economic history article. There are FA articles on movies that don't convert their budget or box office.
For example.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:58, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
It's generally helpful to give readers a sense of how much historical currency amounts mean in practice. I write a lot of biographies about nineteenth-century academics, which often involve their being paid an average salary of about £300: that equally cost that much for the time, but would be nothing today. It's helpful to clarify that it was a reasonable middle-class wage, either by inflating it or by putting it into some context. Given that our readers all live in the present day, the more time passes, the further out of sync their intuitive sense of money will be from what's written in the article, and we should
generally endeavour to write content that will date as little as possible. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 10:55, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
UndercoverClassicist has made a policy backed point. You have resisted change on the basis of personal preference. (I am aware that I am simplifying in both cases.) Feel free to decline to change and see if UC thinks that it is a point they wish to oppose over. If they do (actually, even if they don't) the closing FAC coordinator will take it into account with all other reviewer comments in reaching a decision.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 13:13, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
removed. Why wasn't there demand for articles on movies to do this?
LittleJerry (
talk) 13:37, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
This is now the second or third time we've responded to a question-mark over how a piece of content is presented by removing that information altogether. Neither of those details is particularly mission-critical, but I can't see any real argument that an article without the amount is a better article than one with the amount inflated. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:35, 16 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Its image has been used to raise awareness of the dangers of climate change: this feels like it should be expanded, as it's a fairly significant cultural phenomenon. Who first did this, and when? What have been the major milestones in it? There's a nice quote from an ad director in
this Guardian article from 2009: "We used polar bears because they are a well understood symbol of the effect that climate change is having on the natural world." Loads
here on p42-46 and in Galloway's chapter
here. Lots also
around p239 here, including Coca-Cola. Loads more on Google Books: another lovely quote
here p263: "The polar bear has become the generic brand mascot for global warming" UndercoverClassicistT·
C 09:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Another "historically" here: we can certainly be more precise (would "on medieval and early modern maps..." be correct?) UndercoverClassicistT·
C 08:12, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
OK, but that doesn't take us closer to solving the problem. Across the article, we've got the word 'historically' used four times, as I see it. I've already lodged my objection that it's an inherently unclear term (close to
WP:WEASEL in many ways) in that it implies antiquity without actually demonstrating it. The only one that can't be fixed by a straightforward deletion is Polar bear rugs were historically popular and by the 13th and 14th centuries, where we either need to give an early bound on that popularity or simply cut down to "by the 13th and 14th centuries, polar bear rugs...". UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:38, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
One possible fossil subspecies, U. m. tyrannus, was posited in 1964 by Björn Kurtén Kurtén: repeated his surname. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Two Norwegian fairy tales, East of the Sun and West of the Moon and White-Bear-King-Valemon: we need to think about how we're doing the titles on these. Folktales tend to fall under
MOS:MINORWORKS and so take double quotes but no italicisation. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Assuming you're asking me to give your replies a look, I've done so and put in some of my own. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 16:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)reply
UndercoverClassicist, I'd really appreciate it we would wrap this up soon or if you'd at least give me a timeline. Are there any major issues left? You've given a much-appreciated thorough review, but I can't keep working on tiny details like what to call An Inconvenient Truth. Not unless I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you.
LittleJerry (
talk) 12:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Very much my fault: it's an FAC, not a PR, but I'd always prefer to help get an article up to FA standards rather than state that it doesn't meet them and clear off. It isn't quite there yet: there are still some small mistakes of English and MoS which mean that c1a and c2 are not yet satisfied. Given that we've made quite a lot of changes in some areas without changing the sourcing, I'd like to take a look at some of those sources before voting to make sure that we're still OK for
WP:TSI. I'm happy to stop short and cast a vote on the article as it stands, if you'd like, but I wouldn't be able to vote support for it. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
UndercoverClassicist, how about waiting for
FunkMonk to finish his review? With two finished reviews, the coordinators will give you more time to work on yours.
LittleJerry (
talk) 18:18, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'm also a bit on the slow side these days, so would probably drag it out even more to wait for me.
FunkMonk (
talk) 18:20, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
I'll give it another look when I get the chance; other things have now come up, unfortunately. Happy to ping you when I do. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 07:19, 4 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Support: I haven't had time to carry out the checks, but I don't think I'm going to in the near future, and I have no specific concerns that should hold up the FAC process. Nice work on the article and in polishing it up over this nomination. UndercoverClassicistT·
C 05:59, 20 September 2023 (UTC)reply
a455bcd9
Hi, just a few comments:
File:Polar bear range map.png: do we have a source? is it up-to-date? could we have an SVG version? What do the two colors mean?
Waiting for the new map at Map Request.
LittleJerry (
talk) 22:16, 13 August 2023 (UTC)reply
File:Polar bear subpopulation map.svg: a legend is missing for the colors and the meaning of the letters. Letters used are different from the text that says: Polar bears have been divided into 19 subpopulations labeled... For instance WHB is not listed in the article but it's on the map.
@
LittleJerry I'm away right now but I might be able to do it tomorrow afternoon, just ping me if I forget –
Isochrone (
T) 23:16, 11 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Hi @
LittleJerry could you please specify if you solely want a legend or some of the changes above? I could add an in map legend, but perhaps one in the caption using {{legend}} would be more appropriate: what do you prefer? –
Isochrone (
T) 12:17, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Please note that the legend is only part of the problem. The bigger issue is the 16 vs 19 subpopulations and the different names. {{Legend}} is probably more appropriate and easier to update.
a455bcd9 (Antoine) (
talk) 13:07, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Isochrone, I think it would be better to remove the colors and add in the Kane Basin and Norwegian Bay (NB) subpopulations.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:07, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The sources mentioned on the map (on Commons) show 19 subpopulations, including Queen Elizabeth Islands* (QE) (
this one and
this one). If we choose not to display QE on this map, we should add in the description on Commons: Map showing subpopulation of Polar Bears in the Arctic according to the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG). Note: Queen Elizabeth Islands is not considered by the PBSG to be one of the 19 recognized polar bear subpopulations inhabiting the circumpolar Arctic.
Still what I don't understand: PBSG say there are 19 subpopulations but then only list 18 of them. Did I miss something?
a455bcd9 (Antoine) (
talk) 16:57, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
That confused me too, so I changed the wording.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Hi @
LittleJerry apologies I've been slightly busy, but I've done it now. Any other specific things you want addressed? The original map also seems to have included the Queen Elizabeth Islands and I missed that-- I've corrected it now. –
Isochrone (
T) 19:07, 22 August 2023 (UTC)reply
We still have "Polar bears have been divided into at least 18 subpopulations" but "Map of 19 polar bear subpopulations." on the map. We could at least write Bears in and around the Queen Elizabeth Islands (QE) have been proposed as a subpopulation but this is not universally accepted.
Hi @
LittleJerry, I'm not an expert of licenses. I've just checked all images. I could easily find a libre source for all of them with the exception of:
File:Coat of arms of Greenland.svg: rules around coat of arms are complex.
Commons:Commons:Coats of arms says: "Coats of arms drawn by users based solely on the definition (blazon) without any reference to the original drawing (representation) are usually safe for upload." and according to
Coat of arms of Greenland: "The coat of arms of Greenland is a blue shield charged with an upright polar bear." so it's probably fine.
First, that's how they're presented in the sources, by binomials, and second, it is important for context, to see which belong to the same or distinct genera.
FunkMonk (
talk) 21:29, 12 August 2023 (UTC)reply
The right side of the article is pretty much a continuous wall of images, which is a bit uneasy on the eyes. Suggest staggering a bit, pruning, or using some multiple images templates or galleries.
You present the first person you mention by nationality and occupation, but nothing by the time you reach Carl Linnaeus and others, should be consistent throughout.
First you say "it is interfertile with the brown bear" then "Modern hybrids are relatively rare in the wild", which seems a contradiction. If you mean that hybrids between the two are infertile, this should be specified.
Interfertile not infertile.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:20, 23 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Ah, hard to see the extra letters when reading through hehe. But I think this could be expanded with a link to hybrid already then. Something like, "is is interfertible with the brown bear (able to produce hybrid offspring)" or similar.
FunkMonk (
talk) 12:45, 24 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"The genetic similarities between polar bears and some brown bears were found to be the result of interbreeding" and "Later studies have clarified that gene flow went from polar to brown bears rather than the reverse": this also seems to contradict the above.
"and the polar bear is officially considered to be monotypic" What does "officially" mean here? Taxonomy is always subjective. There can be a consensus, but that's about it.
"reconstructed the subspecies from a single fragment of an ulna, approximately 20 percent larger than expected for a polar bear." I'd say "as" instead of the comma, looks like two different statements now, though it seems they should be connected.
Jumping in, but I think that's a misreading: it's the ulna itself that was 20% larger than expected, not the reconstructed bear. If we want to connect the two clauses, suggest "which was" in place of "and". UndercoverClassicistT·
C 15:16, 24 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"finding that some brown bear populations were more closely related to polar bears than other brown bears" Than other brown bears or than to other brown bears?
"This specimen, when mounted, stood 3.39 m (11 ft 1 in) tall on its hind legs." What is their average standing height? If that isn't given, this measurement doesn't mean much.
Polar and brown bear skulls seem to be quite different
[5], which is hard to appreciate when you describe the polar bear's features in isolation. Could some skeletal comparison be included? Especially since you include as much as two skeletal images in the section.
It already compares them. I have also added another adjective for the skull.
LittleJerry (
talk) 00:06, 25 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"Males have long hairs on their forelegs, which is thought to attract females." This seems odd, especially since no explanation is given. The reader would expect this kind of information to be either elaborated upon or moved to the section about reproduction.
"The polar bear's liver is toxic to consume, due to the accumulation of vitamin A from their prey.[59]" This looks like it belongs under "exploitation", as it has little bearing on the animal itself.
"A 2022 study has suggested that the bears in northeast and southeast Greenland should be considered different subpopulations" So what line of study are these categories based on?
"Bears in and around the Queen Elizabeth Islands have been proposed as a subpopulation but this is not universally accepted." Then what do they belong to?
Ok, I've tried with having space between each point, may be even easier, without breaking conventions.
FunkMonk (
talk) 21:27, 24 August 2023 (UTC)reply
Looks like I forgot it, old habits die hard, but tried with the below haha.
FunkMonk (
talk) 14:26, 25 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"as well as hoofed mammals" What is there other than reindeer and muskoxes? Why not just list them?
You have multiple photos of rather sizeable juveniles, a bit of a shame that there are none of the smaller ones that you'd normally associate with cubs?
"more Norwegians were harvesting the bears" Sounds a bit odd, are we talking about the number of Norwegians or of bears? Perhaps "more bears were harvested in Norway"?
The number of Norwegians harvesting the bears on Svalbard.
LittleJerry (
talk) 21:32, 27 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"Climate change has increased conflicts between the two species." This also sounds odd, as if it was written by observing aliens. Why not just "between bears and humans"?
What's the
WP:Engvar? I see both "archeological" and "behaviour", could be double checked throughout
Canadian English. Changed spelling on one.
LittleJerry (
talk) 22:16, 28 August 2023 (UTC)reply
"He resides underneath the sea floor in an underworld of the dead and had power over sea creatures." Why does it start in present tense but end in past tense, which the following sentence is also in?
58: OK, but may want to specify that it was about 13 nautical miles.
70: Can't access this source.
86: Can't access this source.
96: Can't access this page.
109: OK.
114: Can't access this page.
117: Can't access this source.
123: Can't access this page.
134: Can't access this page.
135: Can't access this page.
137: Can't access this page.
153: OK.
156: Can't access this source.
159: Can't access this source.
182: Can't access this source.
Some citations seem to have links piped under the title of the cited source, others don't. May want to standardize that. Is #173 the sole example of its kind? On which basis was #174 selected for inclusion? Otherwise, it seems like source formatting is consistent and the sources seem reliable for the task.
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk) 09:33, 3 September 2023 (UTC)reply
173 and 174 are news articles reporting on events. Added pages for cite one. Removed urls for journal articles have DOIs.
LittleJerry (
talk) 14:13, 3 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I am pretty sure there are so many incidents of polar bear attacks that it doesn't seem appropriate to me to just cherry-pick one out. Is there something special about these included in the article?
Jo-Jo Eumerus (
talk) 15:40, 3 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Its notable because there were so many bears that entered the area that the local government declared a state of emergency. It even has its own wiki article.
LittleJerry (
talk) 16:53, 3 September 2023 (UTC)reply
This is a massive article so it may take me a while to go through all of it. But I am impressed by and admire your willingness to bring some of the most well-known animals through GAN and FAC.
First off, the lede: It is mostly good, but I am iffy about this sentence "Other food includes walruses, beluga whales and some terrestrial foods." with how it repeats the word food at the beginning and end. Terrestrial animals? Terrestrial plants and animals?
Why are the Inuit words for polar bear given in the Etymology section, but not the words in any of the other cultures that surely would have been familiar with the species (Scandinavian and other far northern Eurasian cultures, for example)? And why is nanook linked here when the link leads to an article that isn't exactly about the same thing as its use here?
Added Norse names and removed think.
LittleJerry (
talk) 09:31, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
That still skips a number of other circumpolar peoples, but those two are the most well-known groups. So acceptable, if not ideal. --
SilverTiger12 (
talk) 17:42, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
In particular. a 2011 study concluded that living polar bear populations derived their maternal lines from now extinct Irish brown bears. I think there's a stray period in there...
Compared with the brown bear, this species has a more slender build, with a narrower, flatter and smaller skull,... "more slender" -> "slenderer", which also matches the narrower/flatter/smaller pattern.
Likely outside of the scope here, but why such a variable number of premolars? I don't know if that's normal for bears but for cats, the dental formula is usually fixed.
Not discussed in sources.
LittleJerry (
talk) 09:31, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
You say why they turn yellowish, but not why they turn greyish or brownish. Is there a reason besides the bears getting dirty?
That is all for now. I'll try and get to the last section tomorrow. Happy editing,
SilverTiger12 (
talk) 01:00, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
This last section, without a doubt, is probably the trickiest in terms of what should be mentioned or not. I.e. why is the the aside about Horatio Nelson important?
I figured since he is an important figure and the incedent has been the subject of a painting.
LittleJerry (
talk) 22:58, 9 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Link Netslik, please.
Its mentioned and linked in the Naming section.
LittleJerry (
talk) 20:30, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
In that case, Netslik seems to be a misspelling of Netsilik. --
SilverTiger12 (
talk) 21:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
This may be due to the bears being more desperate for food and thus more likely to seek out human settlements. I suggest changing to "due to the bears getting desperate for food and thus more likely to..." And are they seeking out settlements or just venturing closer?
As with the other two bear species, polar bears are more likely to target no more than two people at once. "polar bears are unlikely to target more than two people at once."
I am mildly disappointed that
bjarndýrakóngur does not have an article, it sounds interesting.
For the modern portrayals, what qualifies these selections as more noteworthy/representative than other modern depictions? I'm not necessarily asking for changes, just some explanation- here, if not in the article- of why these and not others.
I am citing two books on the animal in culture rather than cherry-pickings sources that are ultimately not about them. Even then, I have to select some. The examples I'm giving represent different mediums: paintings, books, films and radio.
LittleJerry (
talk) 20:30, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
And there ends the main part of my review. --
SilverTiger12 (
talk) 17:42, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
With most everything I brought up answered, I am pleased to Support. Happy editing,
SilverTiger12 (
talk) 21:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Comments by mujinga
I have just a few prose comments:
Lead says: "specialized for preying on seals, particularly ringed seals and bearded seals" and body says "The most commonly taken species is the ringed seal, but they also prey on bearded seals and harp seals", which seems slightly different
The phrases may not contradict but they are saying different things, I'd suggest saying in the lead either "specialized for preying on seals, particularly ringed seals" (which seems most appropriate) or "specialized for preying on seals, particularly ringed seals and also bearded seals and harp seals"
Mujinga (
talk) 12:33, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't know if this needs to be in the article, but (for my own interest at least) is there an estimate of how many polar bears are out there in the wild?
It already says in the Conservation section.
LittleJerry (
talk) 01:02, 9 September 2023 (UTC)reply
thanks I misread that - worth adding the total to lead?
Mujinga (
talk) 12:32, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Bonus comment - for the reference The Guinness Book of Animal Records, you give a publisher location (Enfield, Middlesex) and you don't for other books, so I suggest to remove the location in this case
Well cheers that was a good read, I learnt fun stuff from this article, including about the
Polar bear jailMujinga (
talk) 19:22, 8 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Hi
Mujinga, I was wondering if you felt in a position to either support or oppose this nomination? Obviously, neither is obligatory. Thanks.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 12:53, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
1.5 queries still open!
Mujinga (
talk) 12:56, 11 September 2023 (UTC)reply
"Mothers give birth to cubs in a maternity den during the winter". I would take this to say that there are several mothers in each den, which I think is incorrect.
"more closely related to polar bears than to other brown bears, particularly the ABC Islands bears". A few words of explanation about ABC bears would be helpful as well as the link.
Whats there to explain about them?
LittleJerry (
talk) 19:59, 10 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I found the evolution section confusing. You list different studies with different views without making clear which are now regarded as most authoritative. If later studies are considered more reliable than earlier ones then you should spell this out.
I did. "More extensive genetic studies have found that the two species are in fact separate sister lineages".
LittleJerry (
talk) 19:59, 10 September 2023 (UTC)reply
More extensive does not necessarily mean disproving. This should be spelled out.
Dudley Miles (
talk) 20:52, 12 September 2023 (UTC)reply
"More extensive genetic studies have found that the two species are in fact separate sister lineages." This implies that brown and polar bears are both descended from an unnamed ancestor species. Then you say "Studies in 2011 and 2012 concluded that the genetics of brown bears passed into polar bears.[21][24] In particular, a 2011 study concluded that living polar bear populations derived their maternal lines from now extinct Irish brown bears." This implies that polar bears are not a sister lineage but a a brown bear offshoot. Also does the reference to maternal lineage mean that the paternal lineage was different or that the study only looked at mDNA? Then you say that later studies clarified that the gene flow was from polar to brown bears, but you have just said that it was the other way round. If so, it was not clarifying but contradicting.
"The transparent guard hairs forward scatter ultraviolet light between the underfur and the skin, leading to a cycle of absorption and re-emission." What is the significance of this? Does it benefit the bear in some way?
"They may cover an average of 142,332 km2 (54,955 sq mi) per year, while drifting ice allows them to move even further at 178,040 km2 (68,740 sq mi) per year." This is
False precision, giving a misleadingly exact figure for a number which can only be approximately estimated.
"Polar bears have wide home ranges. They may cover an estimated average of 142,332 km2 (54,955 sq mi) per year, while drifting ice allows them to move even further". The source says "the annual geographic range (142,332 km2, range: 3528-381,947 km2). This raises two points 1. Referring to home ranges as the area they cover is misleading both because they may never go into some areas in their home range, and, as you say, the area they cover is even larger. 2. The average you give is in the source, but if I have read it correctly, there is a variation between 3528 and 381,947, and the average tells us next to nothing useful, as well as being false precision. Maybe "Polar bears have widely varying home ranges, some only 3500 km2, while others are as large as 380,000.
Dudley Miles (
talk) 13:00, 13 September 2023 (UTC)reply
"though they may be less likely to if they have not eaten in a long time". "may be" seems an unnecessary double qualification. If the behaviour has been observed, then they are less likely.
"The bear's long lifespan and ability to consistently produce young each year". You say above that cubs are weaned at 2 to 2 and a half years old and latating females cannot conceive. This means that a female cannot produce young each year.
"Norsemen in Greenland traded polar bear furs in the Middle Ages.[165] In Russia, Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land were important commercial centres for polar bear products, the former already used in 1556." This is confusing. You refer to Norsemen, who were Scandinavians who spoke Old Norse in the early Middle Ages, 5th to 10th centuries. Then, apparently referring to the same period you mention Russian centres, one as early as 1566, which is post-Middle Ages. Also, "the former" presumably refers to Franz Josef Land, but it could be more clearly expressed.
It doesn't say Russians were hunting them in the same period. They are talked about in two different sentences.
LittleJerry (
talk) 20:45, 17 September 2023 (UTC)reply
"Over 150,000 polar bears in total were either killed or captured in both Russia and Svalbard," What does "both" mean here? That a total of 300,000 were killed or captured?
"Though popularly thought of as the most dangerous bear, the polar bear is no more aggressive than other species and the ratio of predatory to non-predatory attacks is similar to the black bear." This seems an odd comment. "the ratio of predatory to non-predatory attacks" is an unclear concept for a layman. More importantly, it does not make sense as a measure of aggression, which would better be reflected by the number of attacks as a ratio of the number of bears of each species.
"The World Wide Fund for Nature has sold stuffed polar bears as part of its "Arctic Home" campaign." This is misleading. A "stuffed polar bear" would be a stuffed full sized skin of a real polar bear, but it links to
Teddy bear, which is obviously quite different.
Dudley Miles (
talk) 16:56, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
There is no policy that says photographs need RS. Some things are just easy to know and observe I've never had to deal with this in previous FAs.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Evolution: The following cladogram is ... per
MOS:ACCIM, avoid use of "following", since the image may not actually follow the text in all presentations.
Characteristics, the "Skull" caption only makes sense in the context of being adjacent to the image captioned "Polar bear skeleton", so another
MOS:ACCIM issue.
Social life: Young males play-fighting (image caption) What WP:RS says these bears are male? This seems to be taken from the Commons image description, but that's not a WP:RS.
,People can tell the difference between a male and female when up-close. This is a featured video.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Reproduction and development: Courting male approaching female (image caption). Same question as above. Somebody took a bunch of photos of two bears and uploaded them to commons. What WP:RS identifies these as a male and a female engaged in courtship?
The picture was uploaded as part of Russian Science Photo Competition 2023. It is actually part of a
sequence of photos of these bears interacting Polar bear are normally solitary on the sea ice expect for courting bears. Its very easy to tell if two bears are courting.
LittleJerry (
talk) 15:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
As a general comment, please review all of the images to ensure that the captions are traceable to
WP:RS. I do not consider commons image descriptions to be RS.
Ha! I was checking that my understanding of policy was correct as you wrote that.
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions makes no mention of citations or referencing being necessary, indeed "Not every image needs a caption". So many or most captions will not need to be traceable to
WP:RS. The exceptions of course are those "likely to be challenged", in which case they will; reasonable editors may differ over which category any given caption falls into. Perhaps
RoySmith could suggest which uncited captions they consider "likely to be challenged"?
Gog the Mild (
talk) 16:43, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Well, we could have a different conversation about whether information presented in image captions should be held to the same standard as information presented in the main text, but if that's not a FACR, I defer to those more knowledgeable.
RoySmith(talk) 17:04, 19 September 2023 (UTC)reply
One caption is cited already. I think the two others which I would feel a little happier to see cited are:
"The loss of sea ice has led to more open water and more pressure on the bears to swim great distances."
"Map from the U.S. Geological Survey shows projected changes in polar bear habitat from 2001 to 2010 and 2041 to 2050."
Gog the Mild (
talk) 16:43, 20 September 2023 (UTC)reply
@
Mark Arsten: On a non-content note, I see the article was indef semi-protected 10 years ago, apparently due to vandalism. I don't see any reason to keep it protected 10 years later, so I've removed that.
Hi
RoySmith, I was wondering if there was more to come, or if you felt in a position to either support or oppose this nomination? Obviously, neither is obligatory. Thanks.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 12:56, 21 September 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't feel qualified to support or oppose, so I'll just be content with the comments I've made so far. Thanks for asking.
RoySmith(talk) 14:37, 21 September 2023 (UTC)reply
Closing note: This
candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see
WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the
bot goes through.
Gog the Mild (
talk) 16:02, 21 September 2023 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.