Talk:The World Without Us

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Featured article star The World Without Us is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
Main Page trophy This article is currently on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article. It appeared in the Did you know? column on November 9, 2007.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Books. To participate, you can edit the article. You can discuss the Project at its talk page.
Featured article FA
WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia The spoken word version of this revision (diff) of this article is part of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia, an attempt to produce recordings of Wikipedia articles being read aloud. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, where you can join the project and find out how to contribute.


[edit] Columbus Effect

One of the longest lasting effects on earth is the Columbus Effect, or the movement of nonnative species to north america. That will persist for millions of years, and will effect evolution across the planet. That wasn't mentioned, but h may not have said it, or I may be wrong. Check me on that. Bobo the Talking Clown 01:01, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

  • The author doesn't use the term "Columbus Effect" but mention the concept. According to the book, he argues that without humans interfering in habitats, non-native species will be out-competed by native species, or overwhelmed by the native ecosystem, after a few generations. --maclean 02:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good article review

GA review (see here for criteria)

I've reviewed the article and noticed a few things that don't allow the article to pass the criteria (linked to above). They are mostly minor and with a few fixes I believe the article can be promoted.

  1. References - Per WP:Cite, the inline references should come after punctuation marks. It's alright to have two references at the end of one sentence if needed, or after a comma. There are a few that don't come after punctuations and should be fixed.
  2. Uniform referencing - Though I don't find it (it may just be for FA-criteria), the references should be uniform. A few references have the accessdate fields in the form "2007-1-1" while others are in the form "January 1, 2007". This should be fixed.
  3. Date links - Per WP:MOSLINKS, all dates should be linked, even if they are repeat links. This should include links in the references, too.
  4. Foreign book versions - For the isbn's provided for the Portuguese and Polish books, I couldn't find the book using Wikipedia:Book sources. I tried a number of the links and none found either. Is it possible they are wrong?
  5. Wrong reference - The link to the USA Today's Best Selling Books list goes to the current list, not the one where it peaked at #48, so that link needs to be fixed.

Otherwise the article passes most of the criteria in that it is clearly written, broad in coverage, stable, and neutral, so with these fixes it can be passed. Also, though it says that an article should only be "On Hold" for seven days, if someone is working on it and the time expires I'll be very lenient on the time. As this is my second time reviewing an article for GA-status, if someone disagrees with my assessments please leave a note here or on my talk page and I can look it over again or even ask for a second opinion. Phydend 19:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[1] (1) Done. (2) & (3) Done. This comes from using different citation templates which render date formats differently (I don't know why). I forced them to be consistent with the wikicode. I left the Month Year dates unlinked as they would not have any effect on the user preferences. (4) The ISBNs are correct: Portuguese and Polish. (5) Added note that it requires navigation to get to the correct entry of the database. All entries have the same url (to the front page). --maclean 00:48, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure why I couldn't find the Portuguese and Polish books there. Oh well that works. Phydend 16:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I am glad to report that this article nomination for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of October 21, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Pass
2. Factually accurate?: Pass
3. Broad in coverage?: Pass
4. Neutral point of view?: Pass
5. Article stability? {{{stable}}}
6. Images?: Pass

Congratulations, it looks like everything was fixed and this is definitely a Good Article. Good job. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to Good article reassessment. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations.— Phydend 16:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)