Talk:Domestic duck/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 16:29, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: RoySmith (talk · contribs) 18:17, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks. You may note that the previous GAN almost completed but was halted, mainly on a mistaken technicality; the issues found have all been addressed, as noted in that GAN's archive. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:26, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm confused. What previous GAN? RoySmith (talk) 20:47, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I was confused. Something else entirely. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:17, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

prose

• Domestic ducks appear from whole-genome sequencing to originate "to have originated..."?
  • Done.

• around 2000 BC[1][2] – by the rice paddy-farming ancestors of modern Southeast Asians, and spread outwards I think you want {{snd}}, and to turn the comma after "Asians" into an endash as well, per MOS:ENDASH
  • Done.

• hunted extensively in Ancient Egypt .. in ancient times, drop the first "Ancient"
  • Done.

• ducks in Roman agriculture were tamed, not domesticated how does tamed differ from domesticated? I think you're going there with the stuff about breeding and wild eggs, but that could be clarified.
  • Edited.

• Other breeds are purely ornamental, having been selected for their crests, tufts, or striking plumage, for exhibition in competitions this seems out of place. You start out talking about mating behavior and weight, then suddenly shift to why they are raised. I'd expect to read something like "x, y, and z breeds are raised for meat and eggs, but other breeds are purely ornamental..."
  • Done.

• from another genus, were more distantly related doesn't being from another genus imply they're more distant? No need to repeat that.
  • Edited.

• Link Flocking and Forage
  • Done.

• Ducks may lay some 200 eggs per ==> "Most breeds of ducks may lay...", which ties it in better with the following bit about Indian Runners.
  • Done.

• unreliable at sitting their eggs link sitting -> Broodiness
  • Done.

• Exceptions include the Rouen duck you should make sure every breed you mention in the text is represented in the philogenetic tree you have drawn.
  • I'd love to, but haven't found such a detailed tree anywhere.

• a chicken does not make as much preen oil as a duck why are we suddenly talking about chickens?
  • Context is incubation: chickens are good mothers for duck eggs and ducklings, except for the lack of preen oil...
    • Oh, I see. broody hens links to chickens. But you don't know that unless you click through to the link. You should say something like, "... to put duck eggs under brooding chickens for hatching"

• Use {{convert}} for "tonnes"
  • Oh dear. I'd much rather not; here's why. Tonnes/short tons/long tons makes for a vast pile of clutter in the text (and we'd need the dratted stuff four times in that paragraph), all the while the three measures are actually not very different, and any reader who just takes "x tonnes" as "about x tons" will be correct. If you're really wanting conversion factors we could note them just once in a footnote; or link tonne. This is genuinely a case where the standard procedure for units doesn't work at all well. Let's do something sensible instead.
    • I'm finding it hard to argue with that.

• considerably greater than that of geese, use "goose", in parallel with "duck" and "chicken"
  • Done.

• As a general comment for the entire "In culture" section, why are the various ducks mentioned assumed to be domesticated? Peter and the Wolf tells a fantasy story; the animals in it could as easily be wild as domesticated.
  • They're Peter's pet animals. Added a ref to a Gramophone review to this effect.

source spot-check

Looking at a 10% random sampling of citations:

• 10-a
  • Ducks have been farmed for thousands of years
  • Verified
    • Noted.

• 16
  • Ducks are subject to ectoparasites such as lice and endoparasites such as trematodes, cestodes
  • Verified. BTW, The URL in the citation doesn't work, but https://www.banglajol.info/index.php/DUJBS/article/view/11518 does.
    • Fixed.

• 22
  • Usually only the breast and thigh meat is eaten
  • Semi-verified. The source does say "usually only the breast and thigh meat is eaten", but they're talking specifically about mallards.
    • Well, yes, but (over) 95% of domestic ducks are mallards, and most of us have never seen Muscovy duck in our supermarket (even if eating habits for it differ, but no reason to think so, either). I think we're OK here.

• 24
  • Peking duck is a dish of roast duck from Beijing, China, that has been prepared since medieval times. It is today traditionally served with spring pancakes, spring onions and sweet bean sauce
  • The URL doesn't work, but https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-evolution-of-peking-duck/ does. On the other hand, that may not be the same thing because it doesn't say anything about medieval times, or spring pancakes (it does mention "delicate pancake") or spring onions (it says leeks), or sweet bean sauce (it says plum sauce).
    • Yeah, that's an "improved and updated" version. Added an archive.
      • But what you've got in the article still doesn't match what's in the source.

• 34
  • Domestic ducks are frequently depicted in wall paintings and grave objects from ancient Egypt
  • The source says "ancient Egyptians had drawings of the Mallards in their tombs". It's not clear how that got mutated into "wall paintings and grave objects", nor is it clear that "frequently" is justified. And, as I mentioned above, I don't see anything that says these were domesticated mallards; from just reading the source, they could easily be drawings of wild birds.
    • Removed.

other aspects of WP:GACR

• The prose is generally well written. The only issue I can see with the lead is that it talks about "pets", but that's not in the main body (it's in an image caption, but that doesn't count).
  • Removed.

• All of the images with one exception are tagged with appropriate licenses. The one exception is File:13-gavage-foie-gras-cages-individuelles-France-2012.jpg, which is tagged, but I'm not sure I believe the tag is correct: the source URL redirects to smugmug and says "These aren't the droids you're looking for." I'd suggest avoiding the issue entirely by dropping that image.
  • Removed, but that text is surely just later vandalism of the site, as the matter of foie gras involves food politics.
    • OK, I dug a bit deeper. At https://animaux.l214.com/ (the home page of the source site), it's says (translated into English) "All photos are made available free of charge and royalty-free, please credit L214." and then later cites CC-BY-3.0, so I guess it really is OK.

• More generally about the images: there's a lot of them. Do we really need all of these to adequately explain to the reader about domesticated ducks?
  • Each image is well justified by the subject and the text. Each one illuminates an aspect of the topic.

• PS, no discussion of ducks would be complete without The Story About Ping and especially https://ftp.arl.army.mil/~mike/ping.html
  • Added. But even with the 'Customer Comments' linking Ping2 to Ping1, I don't think we can really repeat the Unix story here as the customer comment does not exactly make it reliably cited. I note that the Unix Ping is mentioned in the book's article, which I guess takes you halfway.

OK, this all looks good now. I'll admit I had an ulterior motive in reviewing this; I just submitted Big Duck to WP:GAN and was hoping I could entice you into reviewing it. And maybe we could do a double-hook at DYK? RoySmith (talk) 22:36, 2 July 2024 (UTC)