Talk:Red-tailed hawk

Article review

It has been a while since this article has been reviewed, so I took a look and noticed the following:

• There are lots of uncited statements, including entire paragraphs.
• At over 18,000 words, this article is too detailed and WP:TOOBIG. Many sections are numerous paragraphs long without a heading, making the text difficult to read on mobile devices. This article should be trimmed, with information spun out, summarised more effectively, or removed if too detailed.

Should this article go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 01:17, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Red-tailed hawk

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: I apologize for blowing past my self-imposed deadline, but real life has been the priority this week. If this were a traditional discussion like an AfD, I would clearly see a no consensus close here. I see two keep and two delist declarations. GAR is a binary, however. The only options available to me are keep or delist. Analyzing the discussion, I see that the chief concerns of length and excessive detail have been addressed, with a major cut in the length of the article. I cannot see any immediate failure of any of the good article criteria. While several editors continue to have concerns with the article, right now I see a weak consensus in favor of a keep bearing in mind the major changes and improvements to the article. If anyone disagrees with this close, please feel free to renominate after a few weeks, and to cite my close here as authorization to do so. There is such a major difference between the article's state at the start of the current review compared to its state now that I believe a fresh GAR is required to review the current version, should editors still believe a delist is merited. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:54, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

There are lots of uncited statements, including entire paragraphs. At over 18,000 words, this article is too detailed and WP:TOOBIG. Many sections are numerous paragraphs long without a heading, making the text difficult to read on mobile devices. This article should be trimmed, with information spun out, summarised more effectively, or removed if too detailed. Z1720 (talk) 15:54, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

• Delist – unless it is cut down to 8,000 words max. The article is way too long, to a point where it is simply not readable. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:01, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

  It's now 4,000 words. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:21, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

• Delist – agree with Jens Lallensack that the article is much, much too long. I notice that citations to books do not specify page numbers. Looking at the history, the article was only 27.7kB when listed as a good article in October 2007. The article was expanded by 182kB in a single edit in January 2018. - Aa77zz (talk) 16:35, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

  Fixed, see below. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:22, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

• Agree there's a lot of unreadable stuff there. I've also just replaced a misidentified photo; the "nominate B. j. jamaicensis" photo was a random captive bird with zero information on its origin, I've added a genuine one from Puerto Rico instead. I'll check the other subspecies photos later. - MPF (talk) 17:25, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

  See below. The table that contains your image has gone; I have no objection to its restoration if you think it necessary. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:23, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

• Keep: Well as it was a GA and was made absurdly over-large by a single editor, I shall WP:BOLDly revert it to its pre-January 2018 state, and then we can all fill in any gaps from there. The version is reliably cited, mainly to scientific papers, and it covers all the obvious topics. There, done. Let's get this fixed together, everyone. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:18, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
• Keep - Sometimes, an article just deteriorates over time from a valid WP:WIAGA state. Chiswick Chap has restored an older, much better version. Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:11, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
  • @Jens Lallensack, Aa77zz, and Z1720: are you satisfied with Chiswick Chap's edits? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:13, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
    • It is much better now, but I think that just reverting everything to the original GA state is not ideal either, as some crucial standard information (e.g., most taxonomy-related info) is now missing that the previous "long" version at least provided. We should try to get some of that back into the current version. Also, there are other issues, such as information in the lead that do not appear in the body. I will try to make some edits as soon as time allows. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:21, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

      @Z1720 @Chiswick Chap @Jens Lallensack @Aa77zz - I'll put the subspecies table back in; I'll leave doing so for a bit to give anyone time to comment before I do. One thing I'm not sure of though is the vernacular names: in general, bird subspecies don't have separate English names, unless they are very distinctive. But equally, those English names do link to the separate subspecies pages, which are (presumably) orphaned now? - MPF (talk) 19:26, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

      By all means put the table back in; meanwhile, I've linked all the subspecies names to their sub-articles. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:42, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

      I do think that our current list is better than the table: The list 1) is fully sourced, and 2) specifies how the subspecies differ. The table is not. So unless you want to re-do that table, I would prefer the list. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:52, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

      Good call, thanks! I'll leave it as it is for now; might come back later to add the table framing and pics, together with the current text instead of the old text. - MPF (talk) 20:59, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

      @Z1720 @Chiswick Chap @Jens Lallensack @Aa77zz - just checked on IOC; they only accept 13 subspecies, not 14, with B. j. solitudinis lumped into B. j. umbrinus. I'd suggest we follow suit, and merge the Cuban red-tailed hawk page into the Florida red-tailed hawk page, too - MPF (talk) 21:08, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

      Sure, do it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:10, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

      Agreed, we usually follow the IOC, we should here too. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:13, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

      @Chiswick Chap @Jens Lallensack Will do, when I've got time (not tonight, possibly tomorrow...), unless you beat me to it 😆 - MPF (talk) 21:35, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

• Now spent an hour on fixing the lead and taxonomy sections. I still don't love the article; I felt like I fix one issue just to find three more. Most importantly, important aspects are missing entirely. No word on migration/movements even though that's a big topic; nothing on how to distinguish it from similar species; nothing on life span and survivorship, parasites, population status and trends, conservation, etc. At the moment, I stick with "Delist" because the GA criterion "broad in its coverage" is not met. This should not be too difficult to fix; some of it could be taken from the "long" version that was reverted (in a much condensed form, of course). All aspects are summarised in the "Birds of the World" account, which for this species is freely accessible . Still, it needs effort and time. @MPF: Do you think you could help to get at least some of these covered? If so, I might be able to take over a section provided that time allows. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:16, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

  MPF, are you still able to work on this GA save? I think the above comment from JL is the most major of the outstanding items. I'm not sure that all of the aspects are necessary for "broad in its coverage", but certainly some of them are. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:38, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

  @Firefangledfeathers I'll see what I can do, but I doubt it'll be a lot, mainly just checking the subspecies are up-to-date per IOC - MPF (talk) 13:29, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Each of the 14 subspecies has a separate Wiki article. This is very unusual - and in my opinion a bad idea. Subspecies are just regional variations, usually in size and plumage. Subspecies are very similar to the nominate form, often so similar that they cannot be distinguished in the field. The differences can be easily described in the article for the nominate. The behaviour sections (Food and feeding, Breeding etc) will normally be identical. Should the information be repeated? Another problem is that most subspecies don't have accepted English names. - Aa77zz (talk) 16:17, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree, but I worry that merging them all would overwhelm the main article, and even more so if other relevant details (taxonomic history, etymologies, conservation status and trends, number of breeding paris, photographs, etc.) are to be added for each of them, too. Already now we give a lot of room to the subspecies; making that section even longer might verge on WP:undue. If the subspecies list gets too long, we could maybe create a spin-off article Taxonomy of the red-tailed hawk, where we could have a proper section for each subspecies. This would also allow us to cover potential subspecies and those that are currently not accepted, as well as other taxonomic detail that does not fit the main article. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:44, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

The subspecies articles are not part of this GAR. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:26, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

• This is minor compared to the other issues, but could someone more familiar with birds take a look at the external links section? At 10 links, it appears to have too many entries if I'm reading WP:EL correctly. I'm questioning why a Flickr group is included and why several of the other links cannot either be incorporated as citations or added as "further reading" instead. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:20, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  I removed a good number of the bullet points in External Links just now. The All About Birds species account is already a reference in the text, the North American Falconers Association is not expressly relevant to red-tailed hawks, and the other four links I removed were guides on how to identify different morphs. Commons and Wikispecies can be accessed through the sidebar more easily than at the bottom of the page. -- Reconrabbit 18:01, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks, the external links section looks a lot better now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:57, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

• It has been several weeks since there were significant edits to the article. It has also gone from being one of the longest GAs to being just over 3,000 words, which is pretty significant. There were many declarations made concerning a different version of the article, so can interested editors take a look at the current version and give comments on if the article is ready to be declared "keep", or if not what the next steps might be? Z1720 (talk) 15:36, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

• I have to stick with "delist", per my comment above --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:42, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

  GA does not ask for a perfect article, nor total coverage (both impossible anyway), but for a decent introduction to a large subject, which this is. I've added a bit on migration, restoring the old text to a subsidiary article; and mentions of parasites and its status (commonest hawk in N. America). Longevity is briefly mentioned. Wikipedia is not an identification how-to guide: not totally averse to a brief note on species it can be confused with, but further comparison is basically out of scope. I'm staying with "keep". Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:52, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

  Jens Lallensack - I seem to have taken over most of this by default. I've addressed all the issues you mentioned. Hope it's now ok. If not, say what else is needed, but we must be very close to the most that can be asked of a GA by now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:21, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap – Thank you, but unfortunately the issues are deep and the mentioned examples are just scratching the surface. As I said above, I spent an hour myself on this article and the issues were so numerous that I lost faith that it could be brought up to standard without a complete rewrite.

I disagree that distinguishing features are out of scope. This is arguably the most important thing that the average reader wants to have detailed information on (how do I identify this species?). The article cites at least three identification guides – on what basis can we argue that identification is out of scope when it is a major focus of a substantial part of the sources? The lead says that it "can be distinguished from other North American hawks by the eponymous tail", but not even this is mentioned in the body at all. Instead, most of the "Description" section is on size (which is WP:undue in my view). So why are details such as "the exposed culmen was reported to range from 21.7 to 30.2 mm" due weight while details on distinguishing features are not?

I now also looked on sourcing and that just confirmed my earlier impression that a re-write is needed and that point fixes are just not enough. A major source in this article is "Animal Diversity Web". The provided link is dead, but the site is here. From my experience, "Animal Diversity Web" is unreliable; after all, it is an encyclopedia written by students that sometimes cites it sources and sometimes not. But even if we accept this as a reliable source, there are major source-text integrity issues. For example, the last paragraph of "Reproduction" (which has 13 sentences) cites the Animal Diversity Web as the only source, but most of it is not supported by that source, and some of it is contradicting it. Just take the first sentence: A clutch of one to three eggs is laid in March or April, depending upon latitude. – The source says The female lays 1 to 5 eggs around the first week of April, and it doesn't mention the influence of latitude.

I am really not enjoying being the "bad guy" here, and I agree that the new "Migration" section is a very significant improvement (again, thanks for that), but this article is simply not a "Good Article" by our criteria for multiple reasons. The major sourcing issue pointed out above would have been reason enough to quick-fail on sources if this were new at GAN. "Animal Diversity Web" is the only source I checked so far because it is the most easy to access, and my confidence that such issues are absent in the remaining article is not high. I think that we only replaced a bad version of the article with another bad version. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:52, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel like that. Wikipedia however is Not a How-To Guide, and "how to identify" is definitely in how-to territory. And, you obviously can't argue from what is in an article what is a proper subject for the article: Wikipedia is not a reliable source. I'll leave it at that (and fix the dead link); let's see what other folks think. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:16, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I just added some bits on identification. The main remaining issue is the text-source integrity, and that an entire long paragraph is mostly not supported by the provided source is not a good sign. Bad sourcing is the most time-intensive issue to fix that an article can have, and I don't even have access to many of those cited books. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:18, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I've checked and rewritten the paragraph: most of it was supported, but I've trimmed it to the main facts. ADW is, whatever its authors, based thoroughly on scientific sources and it is not a deprecated source. On the other sources used, your lack of access to them is not germane to GAR. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:37, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

@Aa77zz, MPF, Reaper Eternal, Trainsandotherthings, and Reconrabbit: if any of you might venture an opinion on the above dispute, it would be a great help to the best improvement of the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:12, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

My contribution to this GAR was not that substantial, but I will offer that much of the information that is cited to Animal Diversity Web (ADW) could be readily supplanted by Birds of the World Online, which uses some of the same sources (such as "The Birds of North America"). I see now that this site is used only once, and the more readily accessible but also less informative All About Birds is cited in two places. That's about as much as I can helpfully provide. My opinion on ADW is that it is a fine place to start but should be backed up by or replaced with better sources, such as those it cites, when possible. -- Reconrabbit 13:34, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Do you have a Birds of the World Online subscription, or is it available via the Wiki library? Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:46, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't have much time for Wikipedia right now, but I will drop by this discussion again by Friday. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:42, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.