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I've listed this article for peer review because… I am working on it as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject AP Biology 2011 and I feel that the article is off to a fairly decent start, and I want to make sure that it keeps moving forward as time goes by and to make sure that what I've done so far is acceptable and if not, adjust it accordingly. I would appreciate any feedback. Der Elbenkoenig (talk) 03:07, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: Thanks for your work on this interesting article. Here are some ideas for expansion and some comments related to prose and style.

Possibilities for expansion

• It might be useful to say what breed(s) are the ancestors of the Hog Island sheep.

• You mention that "other breeds...are more suited to modern agricultural techniques". You might elaborate on this. What exactly makes other breeds more suitable?

• Who colonized Hog Island? Did they come from elsewhere in Virginia, or did they come from England or elsewhere?

• The problems of inbreeding could be explained in greater detail. Since the Hog Island Sheep have been distributed to several locations, the 200 animals are not living together. Are the separate batches (or individual sheep) transported from one place to another for breeding? Is the captured semen shared among the subflocks? What other sheep breeds have been mixed with the Hog Island sheep? What specific inbreeding problems arise in sheep?

• Should the Hog Island Sheep Association be mentioned in the article? Is it important enough to deserve a paragraph?

• Where exactly are the 200 sheep? Is it possible to give the sizes and locations of the subflocks?

Minor prose and Manual of Style issues

• I'd mention in the first sentence that Hog Island is in the United States.

It says it's in Virginia, does that not imply United States? Der Elbenkoenig (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• "Now, they are preserved by various organizations for their relevance to American history... " - Delete "now" and just say "They are preserved... "?

Done

• "Thus the sheep is relatively small but tough and hardy." - The word "thus" suggests that it was inevitable that the breed would become relatively small but tough and hardy. Is that accurate? Would any feral breed of any animal necessarily become relatively small but tough and hardy? Why not bigger as well as tough and hardy?

Reworded

• "Lambs are born with spotted or speckled fleece, while adults' fleece is mainly white with about 10% of individuals black." - The "with" phrase is a bit awkward. Maybe this would be better: "Lambs are born with spotted or speckled fleece. As adults, about 90 percent of these sheep have white fleece and about 10 percent black."

Done

• "In the 1970s, the island was bought by The Nature Conservancy, and most of the sheep were removed in order to prevent overgrazing." - Flip to active voice and tighten the prose? Suggestion: "In the 1970s, The Nature Conservancy bought the island and removed most of the sheep in order to prevent overgrazing."

Done

• File:Dark Hog Island sheep.jpg displaces an edit button because the first short subsection under "History" is not big enough to accommodate an image. Expanding the text or eliminating the subhead or moving the image down into the larger subsection would probably solve the problem. WP:MOSIMAGES has guidelines about image placement.

Fixed

• The Commons description line of File:Dark Hog Island sheep.jpg is incomplete. It says, "A dark Hog Island sheep at the Norfolk". I think this should be changed to say "A dark Hog Island sheep at the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk".

Done

• "Because the Hog Island sheep resembles the sheep that would have been present in colonial farms, they... " - Singular-plural problem. The first instance of "sheep" in this sentence is being used in the singular sense, but it doesn't match with "they". You need to say "Because the Hog Island sheep resemble... ".

Done

• "The Hog Island sheep population is very small, which means that preservation of the breed would necessitate preserving the breed's genetic characteristics in a pure line of descendants, but this would threaten the breed's survival by inbreeding some of the breed's "bad genes"." - This doesn't make sense as written. The size of the population by itself doesn't "mean" anything; it's just a number. Suggestion: "Because the Hog Island sheep population is so small, preserving the breed's genetic characteristics solely by inbreeding would threaten the breed with 'bad genes' passed from one generation to the next." Or something like that.

Done

• The date formatting in the Reference section should be consistent throughout.

Done

• Some of the citations are incomplete. For example, citation 1 should include the journal name, "CW Journal", the issue (Summer 2007), and the publisher (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation). To insert the issue, add the issue= parameter; to insert the publisher, add publisher=.

Fixed

• It looks to me like the Dohner page numbers should be pp. 142–43. I would also add the issue and the location of the publisher. If you ever need to add information like this that you don't have in your notes, you can probably find it via WorldCat.

altered the page numbers; I thought it was a book, should it have an issue?

• If you want to add the missing hyphens to the ISBN, a handy converter lives here.

• Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Noted

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 19:44, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Der Elbenkoenig (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Additional suggestions:

• Still some residual singular/plural agreement problems.

• Ex: In the first sentence, shouldn't "was" be replaced with "were?"

• Link words like "feral"
• The Hog Island sheep was replaced as a breed by other breeds which are more suited to modern agricultural techniques, but are considered important for preservation because of their historical significance and because of the traits they have that modern sheep might lack, like their hardiness and reproductive efficiency. This sentence is so long. Replaced as a breed for what? And what other breeds?
• The first sentence under the "Research and Conservation" section is also lengthy and could use some rewording.
• Perhaps include a map of the island?

--Yohmom (talk) 17:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]