Wikipedia:Featured article review/Caffeine/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by Dana boomer 16:09, 9 December 2011 [1].

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Caffeine

Review commentary

Notified: DMacks, Looie496 WP:PHARM, WP:MED

I am nominating this featured article for review because there is much primary research present when there are many recent review articles we could be using instread, the references are not in a consistent format, many of the references are outdated. Will work on improving it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:45, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Comments

• 1a There are a lot of very small paragraphs; sometimes only one sentence in length. This is partially caused by 2b. A general copyedit never hurts.
• 2bThere are sub-sections with very short paragraphs. The Psychological section only has one short sentence. I believe the article needs to have its ToC rethought.
• MoS Follow MOS:Images when laying out infoboxes and photos together so that they don't crowd each other. Brad (talk) 07:49, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

For clarity sake The above has been fixed and therefore struck. The other issues I mention below are still valid. Brad (talk) 19:41, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I actually really liked the article. I believe the small paragraphs would be easy for any reader to follow along. I am very aware of the "Tolerance and Withdrawal" affects. The sources are outdated, and I would think that there would be new and improved sources to be found. Kristen46 (talk)

• Note The article has undergone a pretty thorough tune-up over the past few days. It may still receive a little bit more work, chiefly relating to image placement, but it should be pretty stable from this point, so it would be reasonable for editors to look it over now. Looie496 (talk) 23:54, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
• There remains citation needed tags, paragraphs without citations and a dead link. Some of the sources will require page numbers to be cited rather than only a range of pages. Brad (talk) 07:36, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Featured article criteria mentioned in the review section include references, prose and MOS compliance. Dana boomer (talk) 15:45, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Delist Major issues are 1c and 2c. Brad (talk) 01:51, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Dana was asking for updates. 1c and 2c are still issues. There are open maint tags. Brad (talk) 23:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Comments

• 1c I have added some additional "citation needed" rags to those that are already there. The article contains a number of medical claims that cannot be easily verified due to lack of references. This is of particular concern in an article of this nature, where people may be inclined to research medical problems on the wikipedia.

I have resolved most of them. I only needed to add one new ref, although I found better refs for a couple of items -- in all the other cases the supporting ref was located right nearby, but before the sentence instead of after it, so I resolved the problem either by moving the ref later or by adding a repeat citation. There is one remaining cn tag in the chemistry section that I won't touch because the paragraph is incomprehensible to me, and there are a couple of remaining cn's in the history section. Looie496 (talk) 05:04, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• 1d The article is Americentric. It could be improved by cutting back on references to US laws and agencies.

Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:45, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

It would help if you could be specific about which statements you think don't belong in the article. Looie496 (talk) 05:04, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure.

1. In the lead it says: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lists caffeine as a "multiple purpose generally recognized as safe food substance". This is footnoted to be sure; and it needs to be, because it does not appear anywhere in the article. But the lead is supposed to summarize the article. Recommend removing this sentence.
2. In the history, it says:

   In 1911, kola became the focus of one of the earliest documented health scares, when the US government seized 40 barrels and 20 kegs of Coca-Cola syrup in Chattanooga, Tennessee, alleging the caffeine in its drink was "injurious to health".[110] On March 13, 1911, the government initiated United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, hoping to force Coca-Cola to remove caffeine from its formula by making claims the product was adulterated and misbranded. The allegation of adulteration was, in substance, that the product contained an added poisonous or added deleterious ingredient: caffeine, which might render the product injurious to health. It was alleged to be misbranded in that the name 'Coca Cola' was a representation of the presence of the substances coca and cola; that the product 'contained no coca and little if any cola' and thus was an 'imitation' of these substances and was offered for sale under their 'distinctive name.'[111] Although the judge ruled in favor of Coca-Cola, two bills were introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1912 to amend the Pure Food and Drug Act, adding caffeine to the list of "habit-forming" and "deleterious" substances, which must be listed on a product's label.[citation needed]

   This is a long digression, and largely off-topic. Suggest removing the whole middle (which I've italicized).

This would resolve 1d. If you can fill in the missing references, that will resolve 1c and I'll support the article retaining its FA status. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

There's still a lot to begin listing-- I wouldn't even try to take on the MOS issues until the content is further along. The original version that passed FAC was poorly cited, but much more concise and better written than this version, which seems to have taken on a lot of cruft over the years. It reads like an article where lots of editors plopped in whatever news came across their daily screen about caffeine, so I suggest looking at the version that passed for structural ideas might help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Disregarding the order of sections, the structures are actually pretty similar. The current version has a section on chemistry (which I don't understand, being clueless about chemistry), a section on the discovery of caffeine, a section on religion, and a section on detection in biological fluids (which in my view ought to be a subsection of Pharmacology). I think it would be helpful if you would give an indication of some of the things you see as cruft. Looie496 (talk) 15:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Looie, once you think the reviewers' concerns have been addressed, you are welcome to ping them and ask them to return for another look at the article. DocJames is another one you might want to ping, since he hasn't commented here since he initiated the review... Thanks, Dana boomer (talk) 14:41, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I am more or less happy with the summary of health effects. Have not really look at much else. Do not comment on style :-) --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:44, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - How is work going here? I notice that there is still a dead link tagged plus eight citation needed tags. I also note web references missing publishers and access dates, and potentially unreliable references such as (examples!): #51 (Hotspot for Birds), #60 (Energy Fiend) and #61 (Guayaki). Please also ping the reviewers above (Hawkeye, Sandy, Brad, etc) when you feel that their objections have been resolved. Thank you, Dana boomer (talk) 02:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• Delist. I'm looking at this version, independently of any commentary above, which I haven't read. "In other animals" contains three stubby sentences, each poorly written. The "Chemical properties and biosynthesis" section has clear problems (beginning with the first sentence, continuing with uncited and indeipherable text). Spaced emdashes. "Caffeine from coffee or other beverages is absorbed by the small intestine within ... " as opposed to what other kinds of caffeine? Citation needed tags are frequent. Is the History section "really" a summary of all of those other History articles? More choppy sentences in Discovery. I'm unclear why an entire section of Decaffeination is needed-- others may disagree. Choppy prose in "Sources and consumption", even a paragraph that begins with "These tablets are commonly used by students ... ". This is just not FA-level prose, and that's without even looking at the sourcing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:31, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

• Delist per 1c. I am not too keen about any of the sources in Religion section and the amount of caffeine in coffee is backed by sources that couldn't pass a GAN. (This looks like a trend through the whole article) --Guerillero | My Talk 22:06, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment Agree with the above two delists someone needs to take on the sourcing of the rest of the article. We have only really dealt with the medical aspects. The article is however close and it is such an important subject.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:41, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.